Life List #45: Move back to Northern California
14February 14, 2011 by 8junebugs
In January, I marked as “in progress” item 45 on my Life List and began actively planning my move back to the Bay Area.
We’ve been planning it, plotting it, saving for it, and counting down to it for…longer.
I didn’t tell you about it. I’m sorry about that. There are layers to these things and an appropriate order in which to inform family and friends and landlords and bosses and Netflix. (Damn it! I still need to tell Netflix.) But most of you know me in real life and this comes as no surprise, even if I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about it.
Because it’s a long time coming.
In June(-ish), we’ll have been back together for three years and we’ve lived in separate zip codes the whole time. We decided last summer to start figuring out what The Future is going to look like and put some dates (and zip codes) around it.
Life in DC has been a gift. The bad days, the traffic…even the big mistakes fade away when I realize I’ve just spent 10 years living within 15 minutes of the White House. I came here for a bachelor’s degree and I got so, so much more — great friends, excellent education and experiences, and a career I really love — but there was no question which coast would win out. I’ve gone back and forth to the Bay Area so often in recent years that people have started to notice. Hell, I was there three times before the middle of last year (if you count the stopover from Australia, and little Jack Tipton and I think it counts).
I’m grateful for these DC years…although perhaps a little more grateful for some than for others. They’re as much a part of me as Vermont, even though that hasn’t been home in a really long time. Living in Virginia has also legitimized the place “y’all” holds in my personal patois; I no longer have to explain it with “I lived with a girl from Georgia for a year.” I own it, y’all.
Regardless, it’s time to live intentionally and turn “someday” into “now,” and “now” is very, very soon.
It’s time for us to go home.
I’ve spent six months not talking about this. I’ll fill you in on the whats and the hows, the exact whens, as we go along. Right now, I’m packing (and selling), chipping away on that thesis, and working on a smooth transition with an employer that has been very, very good to me for the last six years.
eightjunebugs.com 
Looking forward to seeing you again after, gawd, 16 years??? And catching up over drinks (maybe all four of us?) And thanking you in person for being one of the first voices of reason and comfort when my mom got sick.
Congrats on making it through the tunnel to the light of CA. =)
Thank you and w00t! Definitely want to catch up. We’ll be in or around Oakland, so we’ll have to work out the “where” for that reunion.
And if anything I said helped, I’m really glad…but I’m more glad that your mom’s doing SO much better. 🙂
\o/!!!!!
RIGHT?!
I can’t wait to come visit you out there!
How exciting! May the hows and whats and whens be full of smoothness and ease!
Thanks, Elizabeth! (But what are the odds…?) 😉
You know, when I lived in the bay area, I hated it. Now? I miss it like crazy. I doubt we’ll ever move back, though. We have no familial ties there. I like living on the east coast. It’s familiar, but if I had the money, I’d spent a portion of my time there.
Re: Familiarity–we needz it. It’s been a long time and we’re not moving back to the city we were in before, so we’ll be learning instead of re-learning…which is fine, because I get a little twitchy when the hometown roads aren’t where I left them. I can’t wait to explore a new place together, though. We started doing that with DC, but…yeah, then the crazy hit.
I’ll miss my people here, but it’s not 1999. There’s NO SUCH THING as a long-distance call anymore. 😉
I’m so glad I found your blog, Jen! Please, please, please get starting on that novel. You are SUCH a talented writer. Can’t wait to hear about your adventure..
Oh, and this is Elle!
Thanks, Elle, and hi! Cheers to adventures–your posts and pictures from Hong Kong are amazing!
I’m pretty sure I can’t pull off a novel, but a young woman told me the other day that this love story I’m in should be a movie. Maybe I should start there — I’ve always been better with nonfiction. 😉
Y’all are gonna be so happy!!! Can’t wait to go back to CA for a visit when you get settled! I know it’ll be like I never left because I loved CA so much.
I’m just so happy for you two!
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