To Lulu with love
10 months ago I quit my job. 10 months ago I left behind my belongings, my title, my career. I embarked on my greatest life lesson - learning if I am enough - as is.
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One night during my first week here my roommate locked me out of the apt. I don't think there was malicious intent, just unintentional malice. I slept at an acquaintance's house an hour away. The following morning, in the clothes I'd worn the night before and subsequently slept in, I got up at 6 am to make the drive back. As I was walking into work and frantically trying to braid my hair and make it look even 1/16 decent, my shoe broke. I had no money, no friends, no concept of direction and I sat down for a morning meeting with smeared mascara, unwashed hair, yesterday's clothes and no fucking shoes. It would have been so easy to leave. It also would have spared me the series of events that would unfold during the next 6 months.
There were the countless parking tickets I received due to my car being on the wrong streets on street sweeping day - second Monday, third Tuesday, but that other street is first Wednesday and every other Friday. At one point I just hoped my car would get stolen. Then there's the morning I ran to my car on my break only to find my window smashed and my bag for vacation stolen. There was the realization after three DMV trips (and countless tears) that my license was suspended due to a traffic ticket I got last year when I was visiting San Francisco. Turns out California didn't care I never received a ticket in the mail. There are the two times my roommates announced "you need to be out by next week" - San Francisco is the only place where being homeless is a very real option. At one point a colleague asked, "so you thought you'd move to San Francisco and this would all be easy?".
This journey is not for the faint of heart. It is not for someone who gives up when the going gets tough. This journey is for the stubborn, the determined, the wanderlusting souls convinced there is something bigger, something better. And there is.
Without the struggles, I would have missed the lessons. The street sweeping tickets taught me to slow down - look around. Breathe and pay attention. Read the signs. My backpack was taken when my window was smashed. I'd already been wondering why I bought it, I didn't even really like it. Detachment. Let it go. Even with my belongings in storage it is still a lesson I needed reinforced. I also got to see my boyfriend go into action - make phone calls, tape up the hole, and ultimately help me get my window repaired. I was reminded what it's like to have a teammate and that perhaps I wasn't as alone as I thought. Focus on the people. Not the things. My license suspension was a remembrance of past mistakes and past behaviors. Ignoring them doesn't in fact mean they go away, it actually means they get worse. Deal with things in the moment. Seek resolution. And my near homelessness allowed me to live out my initial intention with this move - to rent a room by the water. Three blocks away from salty air. Three blocks away from the edge of the earth. Three blocks away from a thoroughfare to a second chance.
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Tomorrow is my last day at this job. That job that I quit a career for, that job that I fought to get from 2,000 miles away, that job that I needed to save myself from an anti-depressant filled robotic existence. It has been everything I needed it to be and never even fully knew. I am calmer, less affected by things I don't need, less stifled by things I don't want.
10 months ago I embarked on a life experiment. What I discovered, what I learned, what I created is this - I am proud of who I am. Not my title, not my things, not what I wear - but who I have become. I am not without struggle or flaws, there are many imperfections. But between the snow filled trenches of Ohio and the salt water air of California I found my way forward.
This journey is not for the faint of heart. It is not for someone who gives up when the going gets tough. This journey is for the stubborn, the determined, the wanderlusting souls convinced there is something bigger, something better.
And there is.