Friends. Family. Strangers from the internet. I am abruptly packing up my life and moving across the country in 27 days. I will be road tripping with two of my dearest friends through the southern states to sunny San Francisco, where I will continue to work on Google's Cloud Platform marketing team. 

The decision to move to California has been brewing in my mind ever since Stackdriver was acquired by Google and I found out my new team is all based on the west coast. I non-committally started telling people, "Yeah, I think I'll move to SF in January!" It felt far off enough to be safe, yet it wasn't quite close enough to feel real.

Enter: Caitlin and Kerri. Caitlin is going to Stanford for grad school this fall and the two had been planning an East Coast --> West Coast road trip. I knew about the road trip but didn't think it was feasible for me to up and leave by the end of August. But I realized the only real thing holding me back from just up and leaving was myself: my nerves, my fears, my apprehension to exit my comfort zone. I rarely do anything spontaneous. So I thought: why not? Better to rip off the bandaid now before my over-analyzing brain changes its mind. 

So it has been decided. I am moving across the country. The toughest part is leaving Boston-- my home-- and everyone I love. My identity is so closely tied to where I grew up and where I've lived the last 6 years, which is why this change is equally as exciting as it is terrifying. Exciting because it's the perfect opportunity to expand that identity, to see what I truly am capable of being and knowing and doing. Terrifying because everything I've ever known and loved exists within this 30 mile radius. Leaving home will force me to grow up in ways I haven't yet. It'll test my patience and my ability to keep those relationships as strong as ever. It'll put some hair on my chest, but hopefully just in the figurative way because otherwise gross. 

I love Boston for so so many reasons: its community, its unique changing beauty with each season, its accessibility, its history, its fans, its aggression. But a city is nothing without its people. And my favorite people in the whole world are in and around this tough, small city. It's absolutely not goodbye to Boston, it's see ya later. 

In my scramble to pack up and move my life cross-country, I am currently accepting:

• Plans to hang out in Boston before I leave
  
• Roomate(s) and a place to live in SF
• Recommendations for things to add to my Boston bucket list
  
• Recommendations for things to do & places to go in SF
• Intros to friends of friends (of friends of friends) who want to be my friend in SF
  
  

I truly look forward to my time in San Francisco. I think of SF and I think: adventure. There is an endless number of things to do and people to meet and food to eat and experiences to experience. And I want ALL of them. 


 

Here's the deal: I'm (re)starting a blog. This is the very first post (hi! welcome!). It will be awkward, because that's just how firsts are. First dates? First kisses? First impressions? You are either a filthy liar or a flawless human if you tell me that you've never experienced a painfully, laugh-about-it-later-but-in-the-moment-you-want-to-die awkward first.

Quite unsure how to kick off my blogging reattempt, I fumbled through dozens of topic ideas. This is okay; that could work; this is better, but not perfect. I told myself I would finally publish something but then I didn't and I didn't again. I wasn't sure if I should just jump right into a real blog post of actual value without any sort of ... introduction. But intros are awkward and boring and bla bla bla, said my annoying self-conscious brain, preventing me from actually just DOING it. 

So here we are. I said "Fuck you very much!" to my doubts and embraced the inevitable awkwardness of my first blog post, if for nothing more than to just get something out there and become motivated to continue blogging. Rest assured, subsequent blog posts will center around marketing, startups, music, art, creativity and general daily musings. But for now I present to you: Kelly at her most awkward.

My teeny nugget of wisdom from this awkward post: if you’re thinking of starting your own personal blog, stop. Stop thinking about it. Just effing DO it. It'll be awkward, but it will BE. And that's all you need to get things rolling.