Yeah, Seattle is awesome. But no, I’m not living here. Probably not ever. Visiting will almost certainly happen again sometime, but not with the living. My decision not to live here is in no way a reflection of the awesomeness of the wonderful people I know here (including Ducky, Adam, Rehana, Zack, and Carl, whom I’ve seen this trip.) Nor of the vibrant culture. <\/p>\n
I’m midwestern born and bred. Chicago’s a big town, and I’m far from done with it. I don’t know that it will be home forever, but it is home for now. I think I should continue the experiment with stability for a few years more. Stay in town a few more years. Stay with my employer a few more years (unless I find a research position that aligns more closely with my interests, that doesn’t suck, etc, etc.) <\/p>\n
There’s definitely going to be some egg on my face for this, especially at work. At least three going away parties to cancel. But that’s not a reason to make a major life change. “Because I can” isn’t a reason either. <\/p>\n
I’m glad I came out to visit. I love love love the Seattle field office location. If I could have the view from the Seattle office, and the bike lockup + showers, and the hills, and the greater bikability and the excellent lunch selection in Chicago, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But Chicago’s big in part because it’s so flat. You don’t get to stitch together your home out of pieces parts of different areas like some sort of frankenstein monster. <\/p>\n
I was becoming a bit overwhelmed with my life in Chicago. Stress was part of what prompted this plan. I’ll find a better way to manage that. Scale back on my commitments. Moving across the country as a stress management technique has… issues. <\/p>\n
This is a pattern for me. And I choose to change it. I choose to embrace the changes that can happen when I commit. I choose to grow up a little bit more. That’s a choice with some major consequences. But such are the strands from which adulthood is woven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yeah, Seattle is awesome. But no, I’m not living here. Probably not ever. Visiting will almost certainly happen again sometime, but not with the living. My decision not to live here is in no way a reflection of the awesomeness of the wonderful people I know here (including Ducky, Adam, Rehana, Zack, and Carl, whom … Continue reading “Pulling the Ripcord, Hitting the Eject button”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}