A Chapter in My Life: Welcome to New York

Here we goooooo.

I really just picked the most cliche title but it's fine. Well, the day has come. It is currently 12:30am and I cannot sleep bc I know when I wake up it'll be my last day before I have to move across the country. Over a year ago I traveled to New York for the first time and absolutely fell in love with it. I made it my goal to one day get a job and move over there during my 20s and it is wild that this moment is finally here. I'm excited for what is to come, nervous about starting this whole new chapter in my life, sad to leave my family and honestly I am still in complete shock. I would be lying if I said that this move isn't causing me an enormous amount of anxiety. I mean, I am the first person in my immediate family besides Michael (who is 11 years older than me) to move this far away, besides when I studied abroad. And I think that is huge reason why this seems like such a big deal.

People move all the time and it is extremely common for recent grads to relocate based on their job but I've grown up with the comfort of having most of my immediate and extended family within a 45 min drive. This is also including most close family friends as well. Everyone has always been in such close proximity. And then I went off to college only an hour and a half away. I have always been just a short drive away so the thought of being legit across the country is terrifying. But it's all the more reason for why I have to go. The fact that it scares me so much means that I need to do this. If I stay here any longer I will never have the courage to move. Do not get me wrong, I love the bay area and 100% want to return back before I settle down but I owe it to myself to let myself get lost somewhere completely new and grow as a person (while also starting my career.)

I think also I feel an insane amount of pressure from my family and from myself to thrive in the big city. The outpour of love and support I have gotten since the news came out has been incredible. So many people saying I deserve this and that it was meant to be.. But that just makes me more afraid because I am afraid to fail. Fail at my job, fail at living on my own, fail at the dream scenario that somehow came true. And this fear also stems from my past trauma. Last year I had my infamous 2016 breakdown because I felt like too many good things were happening to me and it was too good to be true. And now those feelings are back. I think to myself, there is no way this is happening, that I got this amazing job opportunity in f*cking New York, something has to go wrong. And as proud of I am of myself it's really hard to shake this mindset. But I owe to myself to be happy and excited about this. I owe it myself because when I first went to New York I felt so comfortable there and I wanted to move there so badly. I owe it to myself because once I went to Italy and came back, I promised myself I would keep trying to explore new things and experience more. I owe it to myself because despite the many people who believed that pursuing a career in cosmetics and beauty was not realistic, I landed the opportunity to work at the number one beauty company in the world.

As much as this move scares the crap out of me and as nervous as this new job is making me, I just need to embrace this amazing new chapter of my life as much as I can. I need to remember how I felt when I went abroad and the fear I had after of never having that feeling again. I didn't want to plateau. I straight up wrote, "I don’t want to fall into a rut, I don’t want to retreat. I don’t want to leave behind all that I learned this past year, all that i’ve discovered. I want to continue to discover and to want and to be curious and to always be excited about what is to come. I don’t want to be so scared of everything. i want to be able to face my fears, do the things that scare me. take risks, to continue to live. What I want for myself is to continue to live fully, fruitfully and a little unarmed." This is my chance to do just that and that is what I need to remember. I need to remember how I felt a couple months ago when I had no job leads and thought I would be stuck in Alameda being a receptionist for lord knows how long. I need to use these emotions to convince myself that change is okay (I mean i got a whole tattoo about this come on.)

I also need to write these emotions out because if I don't I will go insane.

I am scared. Change is scary. Growing up is scary. But I can do this.

I can do this.

Commence chapter living in New York because, "New York is awesome!" -Chandler Bing

Until next time,

☾ SAM ✧

#2017 #personal