Thoughts on moving across the country.

I spent the day with Julie and Kristin yesterday, and it was a blast. After my phone interview with BU, I drove to Julie's to hit up Irvine Spectrum for some food and shopping. Then on the way home, we decided to stop at some bars to keep drinking, at my suggestion. I took them to Orange Circle where Melissa, Chelsea, and I are regular patrons at the stretch of dive bars lying along the roundabout about a mile from Chapman University. We hit up Paul's, The District (which I've never been to), and to end the night, O'Haras, where I warned them about the drunken "white-ratchetness" debauchery I always witness on Friday and Saturday nights when folks have a bit too much Pabst Blue Ribbon to drink, so that it brings the utmost redneck out of everyone. Lucky for us it's pretty quiet on a Wednesday night, but O'Hara's is always poppin.

While we were sitting at the booth at O'Hara's and I took a sip of some rum and coke, it was with a sudden terrifying realization that this will be the last few months I have left in California before I leave all my friends and everything I know to move across the country. I felt the blood drain from my face when those thoughts washed over me, but that rum shot all my blood to the surface of my skin again, so my Asian glow came back at the drop of a hat. At any rate, in that moment, I truly felt terrified...and sad.

I've left home before...I went to college 7 hours away from home. But still, I was in the same state, the same coast, the same time zone. Massachusetts is a long way from California. I won't even be able to talk on the phone or Skype comfortably without the time zone gap to worry about and knowing that it's a 6 hour flight to home versus the 6 hour drive home. When I was in college, if I wanted to go home, it was a 45 minute flight in which I didn't even have time to go through an entire Green Day discography in my seat and never have time to really use the airplane restrooms either.

People keep asking me every day, "Are you excited?! I bet you're excited. I'm so jealous!" They then would talk about how much they wish to move to a brand new city to start all over, how much they wish to move out of California, how much they wish to do this and that.

Except, you guys aren't the ones moving.

I get it. I was in that spot during application season, I really was. Nobody will understand the magnitude of how much I wanted to leave Orange County soon after graduation. I was afraid of being comfortable again. I'm not. I had to get out again.

However, people tend to forget that starting over on a blank slate isn't always that easy. You no longer have foundation, a home base, and friends who already know you and enjoy your company. You never had to worry about making friends. You never had to worry about how to get to a certain place, where to get food, where the bank is, or where to get your hair done. It's the small, infinitesimal affairs that will leave me scared...things that I cannot fulfill as easily or isn't as readily accessible as it will be at home. You think that's fun? Or that it's part of the experience that I will so gladly embrace? Not necessarily. A new place won't feel like home until it takes some time getting used to. That's how I felt at Santa Cruz. It wasn't until senior year I got the hang of the city and it started to really feel like home. The first year, I was struggling so hard to make it feel like home. Now whenever I visit Santa Cruz, I always feel that welcoming of "home."

I ask all of you who say this to me: put yourself in my shoes at the moment, knowing that you had to find a place in a city by yourself where you don't know a soul, knowing that you were back to square one trying to make good friends once again (and who's to say that they even will end up being good friends), knowing that you have to support yourself or find ways to make money so to ease your mother's finances on paying for grad school tuition, knowing how stressed you will be and depressed at times but not knowing who to turn to. A phone call is a phone call but I always found it comforting knowing that whenever I have problems at home, I could hop into my car and drive less than a mile for some real interpersonal consolation and support.

I know I'm ranting now but at the same time I understand that all these issues are normal. The fall before I transferred (during my application process from Cerritos College) I wanted to get out so badly. i felt ready to leave Fullerton. I wanted to experience different cities. I wanted to move where I knew no one. I felt stuck. Completely, utterly, helplessly stuck. You get the idea.

Then when the time came for me to leave Fullerton, after one of the best summers of my life, all of a sudden, I didn't want to leave home. I was scared. I was terrified. For the enthusiasm and eagerness I had for moving away, when the time came, I felt like I wasn't ready. I didn't understand why. This is what I thought I wanted, right? This is what I worked so hard for. This is what I studied my butt off for. This is my dream school. What happened? Why the hesitation now? But as my best friend told me, once you have those doubts and apprehensions about leaving, that's when you realize that it's time for you to go. I'm in the same boat right now. Last fall, I prayed every day that I will get into a school in the east coast. I even turned down funded offers from two schools in the Bay Area (which I absolutely LOVE), so I could experience a different city. But now that it's happening, I'm terrified once again. I think I'm terrified because I remembered how hard it was adjusting to a big move when I was 21, and here I am again, 3 years later, ready to make an even bigger move, to deal with an even tougher adjustment.

I feel like I need a reason to move...I feel like I have to be angry with my hometown to want to leave. I don't have any baggage, I don't have anything that's bogging me down, and the motivation and drive to begin really establishing my career should be reason enough to move, right? This move is supposed to come with positives, meaning it's supposed to help me get my professional life started now. I don't have any other reason to leave, because I love everything here in California. Maybe I feel that I was meant to get accepted to Boston U because that's the path that will help me come that much closer to reaching my dreams and goals.

I'm scared of history that always repeats itself. I know what I went through two different times in both Fall '11 and Fall '12 that sunk me into deep depression and self-hate. I'm afraid of it happening again in Boston. It's the perfect time to feel depressed and blue...I'm in a brand new city once again, right?

I guess I am not really sure where I'm going with this, so I'm going to just close awkwardly. Everything is so up in the air and these fears, worries, and doubts aren't going to go away any time soon (I imagine they'll only get bigger and bigger as August 25th creeps by closer and closer), but all I can do is pray and turn to God at the end of the day.