The Next Great Chapter

Around Christmas time, we started talking about where we might end up after New York.  Our lease is up at the end of September, and we both knew that we definitely did not want to be in New York past then.  We always saw New York as a short-term thing (for better or worse...who knows how things might be different if we'd left it open ended), so it was just a matter of putting in our time, checking off the "Lived in the greatest city on Earth" check box, and figuring out where to go next.

Early on, there were many options: Boston, Chicago, DC, and Seattle.  Sadly, Indianapolis was never really in the mix.  Damn you, Indianapolis, for not having mountains or lakes or something.  Way to be boring and flat!  (Don't worry, I still love you a lot.  I will get there someday.)  The more we kept talking about where to live and where we would go, we kept coming back to two: Boston and Seattle

On the one hand, moving to Boston meant moving home.  On the other hand, we have no house, no kids, nothing tying us down at the moment.  What better time to explore another part of the country?  We'd already taken a big step by moving to New York City and exploring true city life, but were we ready to pack up and move across the country?  Were we ready to become West Coasters, having been East Coasters our whole lives?  (Well, one of us anyway.)

In the end, we decided to push for Seattle.  Marek lobbied hard for a transfer through work, and in the end, some things fell into place and after what felt like an eternity - but was probably a couple of months - we had a firm, official "YES" to move to Seattle.  Before we had the official official "yes", we did tell a few people (family, very close friends, and my Internet BFF, for obvious reasons), and then we just sat around and waited for the dust to settle on everything else - getting the official approval from my work, listing our apartment, getting a quote from the moving company, booking flights to Seattle to apartment hunt, and figuring out the exact timeline of our move. 

So today marks the day: T-minus 31 days until we move out of New York City.  I'm not going to lie - it is a little bittersweet.  For better or worse, NYC and our little sardine can apartment has been our home for the past 18 months, and I'd be lying if I said I won't miss it at all.  We'll especially miss the friends that we were lucky enough to make in our time here!

For the creepers detail-oriented people out there, we'll be heading home to Massachusetts for a week and then taking the following route as we head west.  We've got eight big stops, passing through 21 states and one district (including eight new ones), across almost 4,000 miles.