2023: A Year Of Pivots
·2023 is the year of the Rabbit, my Chinese zodiac year. Supposed to be lucky or sumthin’. π
Mentally, I was still frazzled by my mom’s end-of-life journey and had the post-pandemic jitters. I have the mid-life feels. π€―
I had been working at Meta / Facebook going into 2023. The gig provided structure and routine, free food and car-charging, and social connections (aka friends). π€
Because I believe that strong, healthy relationships equaled a strong, healthy life, I had an epiphany to move to Chicago, to be nearer to my closest friends (mostly university colleagues). π
In March, I planned to sell my home of 19 years, while I worked remotely in Chicago (for 2.5 weeks) and scour the real estate market for a downtown condo. Part of me needed to let go of the home, because of memories of my late mother π
I looked at a few places with an agent, finally making an offer on a lake shore condo. After accepting, I reviewed the HOA docs and further crunched numbers, and changed gears. I backed out. Taxes, fees, etc. Not worth it. Felt rushed. What was I feeling? π§
I needed to recalibrate and understand what I wanted in life. Maybe Chicago wasn’t the mecca that I believed it would be… π€
However, on the flight back to the west coast, at the airport food court, I accepted an offer to buy my California home. Signed and sealed digitally right before takeoff. Whoopie. π«£
2.5 weeks later, after finalizing the sale, I moved into my friend’s East Bay home basement with him and his family. π²
During my 4-month basement stay, I decided to move to Thailand, since I owned a Bangkok condo. Might as well, right? π€
Fast forward 3 months, I resigned from Facebook after my boss (and good friend) transferred teams. Onwards. π«’
Subsequently, I took a 4-week journey across the United States: Oakland, California -> Nevada -> Utah -> Wyoming -> Iowa -> Chicago (staying for several days to hang with friends) -> Champaign-Urbana (visiting the alma mater) -> Kansas -> Colorado -> Las Vegas -> Los Angeles -> Monteray Bay -> Oakland π€©
During the following 2 weeks, I gave away, donated, and trashed anything that I probably didn’t need anymore. π΅βπ«
In mid-September, I sold my Tesla Model 3 to my buddy and transported myself and 7 medium-sized boxes via aircraft to Thailand. π€ͺ
And here I am. Still dunno what I’m doing. But, I’m still here π