It’s a little after 1am and I’ve decided it’s a fine idea to get a start on packing for our move. Months have passed since I was laid off from my last company, which has left plenty of room for my natural night owl tendencies to flourish. I’m weighing the relative sentimental value of various knickknacks — trying to imagine what things I’ll miss seeing on a shelf once we’ve arrived in our new home in a new city… a new continent.
New York City has been home all my adult life and chunks of my childhood. Although a frequent traveler, I’ve never lived very far from here, except one summer in each of Kyoto and Beijing — stints too short and neatly defined to really count. New York is so comfortable and familiar to me that not living here is hard to imagine. I’ve got more subway graffiti, water bagels, and Hudson River water (?) than blood in my veins.
Yet here I am, getting ready to move my knickknacks, a neglected guitar, my loving husband, two feisty old cats, and much of my life from the big Apple to sunny Lisbon. I’m wildly excited and maybe a little scared. I’m about to leave this comfortable, familiar city that I do genuinely love and to try somewhere new.
Well, how did I get here?
In spring of this year, my company signaled advance warning of another round of layoffs among the countless slamming tech workers daily. I was fairly certain I would be on the chopping block… but I wasn’t as upset by this realization as I might have been. In all honesty, I was incredibly burnt out and ready for a change.
On the designated morning I read the form email sent to “those impacted by the layoffs” with a deep sense of relief. Change had come to ask me, ok now what?
I had spent years building my career as a designer and design leader: working hard, learning skills, making mistakes, gaining experience, collaborating with other professionals, developing expertise and a point of view. The obvious answer to ok now what would be .. should be… to start looking for another open position in New York.
But that’s not what I’m doing. I’m getting ready to start a new chapter in a new town. I have no job on the other end, I’m only just learning the basics of the language, and the plan is loose (at least looser than I usually roll). I’m catapulting myself (and my family) out of the comfort zone and putting my design career on pause.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge the incredible privilege required to do something like this. A lot of the specific circumstances and good fortune that enable me to make this kind of change aren’t as readily available to others. I’m damn lucky and damn grateful.
Ok, now what?
So, here I am, staring at a pile of half-filled boxes, debating how best to bubble-wrap my commemorative tumbler from Grand Central for the long journey. It’s bittersweet to extract myself from New York, but I know it’ll still be here for me. It will be interesting for me to miss it.
People have been asking me what I’m going to do in Portugal (besides learn Portuguese and drink vinho verde). Ok now what? I’m ready to say — and this is such an exciting thing — I have no idea!
I can’t wait to find out ✌️💗
