Unsettled (pt. I)
We arrived in Boulder six months ago, marking the end of our trip and the beginning of what was supposed to be the process of settling into our new home. We both felt ready; we spent a mere three days in the Bay Area before beelining it out to Colorado.
Before we left France, I had already started getting my ducks in a row, job search-wise. I updated my website, shared my search on LinkedIn, and started reaching out to close connections to let them know I was back on the market. In a matter of days, I went from feeling like “I don’t know if I’ll ever want to work a 9-5 job again,” to “I’M READY NOW.” It was a good lesson in the power of mindset; when I was mentally in “I’m on sabbatical” mode, that’s how I envisioned my life. When I shifted that mentality to “we’re wrapping up the trip and returning to real life,” my entire outlook on returning to work shifted with almost no mental effort.
We landed in Boulder in early February, and I hit the ground running with my job search. I felt motivated and excited to explore career pathways. I launched a whole separate blog on this website tracking my search (you can look at the dates of my posts to see for yourself how well I’ve kept up with that commitment), scheduled calls with as many former colleagues as I could, and set up a beautiful job search tracker in Notion to organize my efforts. My friend Sarah and I were job search buddies; she too had taken a sabbatical for ~six months, so we set up biweekly meetings to keep each other accountable.
As I shared my job search journal on LinkedIn and publicly announced my search, I got an outpouring of support and messages from people. My morale and motivation were sky-high; Lee had to force me away from my computer to get outside and pace myself, which I begrudgingly did because I knew it was the healthy thing to do. But as the weeks, and then months, went on, my networking traction was not yielding any results. And I mean any results. Multiple people referred me internally for roles, some even advocating directly to the hiring manager and/or recruiter leading the search, only for me to never hear back. I was offered two contract opportunities but both of them fell through at the last second (one at the verbal offer stage, the other after I signed a written offer) due to budget reasons. I contacted recruiters and hiring managers on LinkedIn, and none of them responded.
My career has literally been helping people get jobs. I know how this process works. I’ve worked with hundreds of hiring managers and recruiters, and thousands of job searchers. I’ve seen it all. My confidence in my abilities to navigate the search was the main reason why I was unruffled by the layoffs in the fall and winter; if there is anything I should be able to handle, it’s a job search.
But I barely handled it, at least not as I’d define “handling.” I put one foot in front of the other, and have been for six months, but it’s a struggle. I’m fortunate that Lee earns enough to comfortably support both of us while I job search; I realize that many people are in far more vulnerable positions than I am. Despite the security of knowing that my core needs are met, I feel deep anxiety about money.
Many of my friends are perplexed by this, reminding me matter-of-factly that I am objectively completely fine and questioning why I feel so much urgency. Lee is also perplexed, to a point. To be blunt, if you grew up financially secure, you probably can’t relate to someone who didn’t. And when I say financially secure, I don’t mean wealthy, or even comfortable; I mean growing up without worrying about food or housing security, knowing all your core needs would be met. Being broke in college and post-graduation isn’t comparable, at least not if you had the option to move back in with family as a safety net, undesirable as that prospect might have been. Even after career growth, working with a financial advisor, and obsessively managing a budget allowed me to build my savings and pay off all debt except a modest student loan balance (thanks, Supreme Court), I’ve never felt truly comfortable financially. I always felt guilty about spending money, or out of control of where some of it was going, or anxious that I am behind on saving.
For a few years, my financial anxiety was completely irrational; I was on solid ground and making consistent progress towards my goals. I repeated this to myself, and spent a lot of time working through my financial “trauma” (so dramatic but true I guess) with my therapist so I could stop feeling like money controlled me instead of the other way around. I started to feel like my relationship with money was healing, and I learned to relax a bit more and trust that I would be ok.
When Lee first started talking about taking the trip, I was adamant about not going. The prospect of not working for up to a year appalled me; I could never do that. But as his departure drew nearer and the reality of being apart for so long sunk in, I started questioning my rigid stance. I made a budget and realized that while it would deplete most of my cash savings, it was possible. Lee and I talked about economic projections and acknowledged it might take me longer than expected to get a job; we agreed this was ok and that he could support both of us.
I will jump out of a plane and eat expired food, but I do not consider myself a risk-taker. Most of the decisions I’ve made in life have been calculated and safe, solely because of money. This fear has held me back from doing multiple things that I’ve wanted to do; live abroad, take career leaps, go to grad school. After so many years of living safely and getting rewarded financially for it, I found myself feeling hollow. So I decided to finally take a risk and join Lee on the trip. As far as risks go, it felt like a minimal one; I made a budget, Lee and I talked about the possibility of me not finding a job immediately, and I fell back on my confidence in my abilities to get a job - something I’m somewhat of an expert in.
The trip had absolutely incredible moments for which I will be forever grateful; I got to see and experience places that I may never have otherwise seen. I spent more time with friends and family than I had in the previous five years combined. I got semi-decent at mountain biking. I spent weeks with Marisa helping them through their college apps. While helping Marisa, I got to visit with my aunt who, unknown to me at the time, would pass away suddenly only a few months later.
But the trip was hard. Lee’s symptoms were bad for most of it. Me being there made it worse for him, and both of us were miserable a lot of the time. I spent weeks in the woods, feeling sad and lonely and longing for human connection. I seriously considered abandoning the trip multiple times, but the logistics of where to go alone with all our stuff in storage and without a job were too overwhelming. Instead we tried to build in short stints of time apart so we both could have a breather and recharge. I had imagined the trip being a challenge, but also liberating. The reality was that I felt trapped and guilty for a lot of it. Trapped because I felt like I had nowhere to go, and guilty for negatively affecting Lee’s experience when the whole reason for the trip was for him to get to do all the things he might lose the ability to do in the future because of his health.
And then we arrived in Boulder, which represented a fresh start. I had been looking forward to coming here for months. I dove into my job search with optimism and motivation, knowing full well that I was entering a challenging market but confident in my ability to succeed despite it.
But we’ve been here for over six months, and so far I haven’t succeeded. For almost four months I didn’t hear back from a single application, including many warm referrals. When I did start hearing back, it was mostly from jobs that were a lower title and significant pay cut from what I was earning in my last job. I’ve had to consider taking a pretty significant step back in my career, and while I know that jobs are not permanent, I’ve worry about the impact that step back will have on my career mobility moving forward. And while my core needs like housing and food might not be a concern, I have other financial obligations that I do not expect Lee to meet; I need to rebuild my savings, I need decent health insurance, I need to start repaying student loans soon, and I really, really want to be able to help Marisa as they go to college in the fall. On top of this, the rental market in Boulder is just as expensive as much of the Bay Area, and with inflation my cost of living is higher than it was last year. I can’t help but feel shattered to reflect on where I was in April 2022 vs now.
Most of all, I feel betrayed that I finally allowed myself to trust my gut and take a risk, only to feel like it was the wrong decision. I remember thinking before I put my notice in at work, “even though there will be challenges, I do not think there is a reality in which I regret doing this.”
On my worst days, I’ve been filled with regret and have wished I could go back to last year and make a different decision. I feel like a spoiled brat for saying that, because how many people have the option to ever take a full year off of work to travel? I’m well aware of the immense privilege of my situation, and in many ways it makes me feel even worse - like I squandered the opportunity and experience.
When wallowing in one of my dark patches recently, I sought out my friend Kelsey for advice. Kelsey is the definition of taking the road less traveled, both figuratively and literally. She quit a coveted job at Airbnb in 2017 to hike the PCT, and then quit another tech job in 2019 to lead hiking and biking trips with Backroads, taking a huge pay cut. In the off season she started a travel magazine, Bucket, and casually got her pilot’s license. Realizing she enjoyed flying and wanting a more stable/lucrative career than leading outdoor expeditions, she enrolled in school last year to become a commercial pilot, and is well on her way to achieving that goal. She is someone who listens to her gut, takes risks, and lives her life to the fullest. While I know these experiences haven’t been without their challenges, I do know that she is overall happy with every decision she has made and doesn’t feel regret over them. I hoped she would have some wisdom to help me grapple with the bed I’ve made for myself.
One thing she said has stuck with me: “You pulled the thread to see what would happen, and sure maybe it wasn’t exactly what you hoped it would be, but think of how many people live their entire life without ever pulling the thread.”
The reality is that when I decided to leave my job, I was filled with the overwhelming sense that it was the right thing to do. I specifically considered the financial risk that I was taking, and reasoned, “well I don’t feel fulfilled despite being financially stable, so what’s the point of having money if I’m not truly happy?” If I had decided to stay behind while Lee traveled, I know that I would have been filled with the same regret and unhappiness that I feel now. Hindsight is 20:20, and the fact that I can have hindsight about this situation means that I took the risk, I pulled the thread.
This doesn’t necessarily make me feel better about my current situation; I still feel anxious, discouraged, and overwhelmed a lot of the time. Little tasks are a struggle, my memory sucks, and the resilience that I have always considered one of my defining traits feels like it’s hanging on by a thread. But I do feel more at peace with my past decisions, and unhappy as I may be with the outcome, I know that I will be able to look back on this experience and be happy I pulled the thread. I’m a big subscriber to the idea that we mostly regret the things we don’t do. The past several months have shaken my belief in that, but I am confident that feeling is temporary.
Since I don’t have any photos specifically for this depressing post, please enjoy a smattering of my more positive experiences from the past ~six months:
