The Aftermath: Part 2

Wait, wait, wait. I skipped a semi ridiculous part of the story in part 1. Let’s back up to the Philippines, specifically, we’re in Boracay, I have a tan now (it’s true!) and we are about 20 hours from leaving paradise. We spent our last day on the beach of course, soaking up the rays and contemplating what life was going to be like when we returned home. Just as I couldn’t fathom what it was going to be like traveling, I had a really hard time picturing how life was going to unfold when we stepped foot on US soil. It was definitely a quiet, introverted day, both of us saying our goodbyes to the land that had given us so many adventures, blah blah blah. Since we were now tight wads, and our plane left very early in the morning from Manila, we decided that we would skimp and not get a hotel for the night. You read that right. We were going to stay up all night in order to sleep on the plane. The plan was flawless! And by flawless I mean it was a pain in the butt and around 3:00 am I was really wanting to get in a bed and cursing my cheapness. When we arrived in Manila around 8:00 pm, we tried to drop our bags at the airport so we didn’t have to lug them around. Wellllll, the Manila airport doesn’t have anything like that. Then we had a big miscommunication with our taxi driver, who was trying to take us to who knows where.. There was yelling, and there was no paying. Yeah, it was that bad. We eventually made it to the Mall of America (hooray!) for dinner and had a delectable meal, even with our 30 lb bags attached to us. Our next stop: 24 hour internet café. We had decided to spend the rest of our time surfin the web instead of sleeping. So, fast forward about 6 hours and it’s 4 o’clock in the morning, I’m all surfed out (yeah, it happened) and we roll into the airport to check our bags. The flight to Hong Kong isn’t all that long, and I have to go through another round of convincing HBF that we can accomplish Mission: Impossible. Oh, and HBF has left his coat at the internet café, so he has no warmth. Good thing the airplane has blankets. Unfortunately, SFO does not and he paid dearly for his forgetfulness (see previous post).

Ok. Fast forward, Hong Kong, hooray! Get the watch, hooray! Hong Kong to SFO, hooray! Flight canceled to Portland, boo cry curse scream cry again. Made it home, hooray! Loved on Midas, bunny hop whine. Bed, hooray!

The next few days are a blur of delicious food, wonderful milk, hot showers, a soft bed, and seeing the family. It ended up the company that I did a phone interview with wanted to interview me in person, only they were in Berkeley. Time was of the essence, but I wasn’t ready to head south yet. I had just gotten home! I needed more pampering time.. but HBF was ready to head down to Santa Rosa to see his parents. So, we devised a plan. We would drive down to Berkeley in his car, I would do the interview in Berkeley and fly home, meanwhile he would continue on down to visit his parents and eventually visit his friends in SD, too. At this point, there was a very real possibility that we would move to the Bay Area, but all of our worldly possessions were in San Diego. The logistics of everything is mind boggling, but stay with me. If we did end up in Berkeley, HBF would already be down in SD to get our crap and hopefully I wouldn’t have to be a part of moving it all.

The interview went well and we spent the rest of the day in San Francisco and checking out Berkeley. It was a glorious, sunny day, the kind they rarely get in March, and we kind of felt that the universe was trying to tell us that the Bay Area was the right place. I wasn’t super jazzed about the job, but I’ve never been super jazzed about any job and it was really our only bite. There was an option for HBF to go back to his old job, but he really didn’t want to and we were both really feelin the Bay Area that day. I got on the plane thinking I would take the job and we were moving to SF as long as the offer was decent.

Decent was the operative word, and decent the offer was not. It was such a low-ball offer that I was kind of upset. But, how upset could I be? It was really the only thing on the table… I immediately didn’t want to take it, but what about the signs given by the universe? What about the blissful, sunny day in Berkeley the one day we came? Apparently the universe was drunk that day because there was no way I was selling my soul out to work for a fraction of what I was making before. Ok call me greedy, but at the time I would have had to keep HBF afloat too, since he didn’t have a job or any prospects. It just wasn’t enough. So, I turned down the offer and HBF and I decided to go another way. HBF would take it for the team and work part time at his old job to bring in some income while we both looked for new jobs in SD. What a man.  I wasn’t stoked about going back to SD.. I had basically said my goodbyes and I had said throughout the trip that I was done with San Diego. I had been there a long time and I just didn’t think it was the place I wanted to be at the moment. I always thought we would end up somewhere else, but… Here I was, agreeing to go back to SD. Sometimes ya just gotta go with it, and that’s what I did. Well, sort of. I stayed up in Oregon livin the dream life at my parents’ house for as long as possible. HBF had to drag me out of Oregon kicking and screaming because I knew as soon as I stepped foot into SD, the pressure was on to find a job. I just didn’t want to face that. AT ALL.

Friends and family would ask me constantly what I was going to do now. I would play it all cool and pretend I had it all figured out and that it was no big deal.. ‘I’ll get a job, no problem.’ But inside, I had no idea. My 3 previous ‘engineering’ jobs were horrifically soul crushing and I just wasn’t sure if my sanity could take another job like that. I put ‘engineering’ in quotes because the term engineering was in my title, but I don’t think I ever did any real engineering. Maybe if you count being a PowerPoint master engineering, but I sure don’t. Anywho, the thought of getting another job that I hated gave me anxiety and I was so turned off of engineering. The cube farms, being a minion and not really understanding what I actually do or what impact I have on anything is basically my idea of spiritual murder and I didn’t want to take that anymore. *Deep breath* Go to a happy place Go to a happy place Go to a happy place.. Oh wait, I don’t work at those places any more. Thank GOODNESS.

Part 3 to come.