Full Circle: Moving to Boston!

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Dear Friends & Family,

I can’t believe it has been almost a year since I last posted a blog. Time has passed in a blur, and I have trouble believing that it is now April 2010. Every year has its ups and downs, but this past year has been more down than up, unfortunately. I guess there is no escaping the law of averages; who am I to try and avoid adversity? But things are beginning to look up again, and I have some good news for everyone. I am moving to Boston!

Yes, Beantown. The city where I was born. I haven’t been back much in the intervening 24 years, but I am looking forward to launching the next phase of my adult life. After putting it off for two years following graduation, I am finally joining the “real world.” I realize that it is also called the “rat race”, but I am really excited about this. I just accepted a job as a climate change consultant with an environmental consulting company, and I will be moving to Boston in 2 weeks to start. I look forward to learning my way around a new city and welcoming any & all friends who want to visit me ; )

Let me rewind and give you a synopsis of how I came to be in Boston. As you know, I returned to Breckenridge after my wonderful South America trip last spring. I spent the summer working for the Town of Breckenridge Parks Department as a glorified gardener. To be honest, it was probably the best job in town, because I was outside all day, every day, and there is no place more beautiful than the Colorado Rockies in summertime. I rose at 5:15 every morning, biked to work in sub-zero temperatures (the downside to a high-altitude summer!) and worked from 6am-4pm on Thursday-Sunday. The perks were great- a three-day weekend, free rec center membership, and great colleagues. I was one of the “Main Street Crew” - or “the flowergirls” - as all the locals called us. We spent our mornings driving a F-350 around town watering the 100+ gorgeous flower baskets that draw tourists by the thousands, and our afternoons consisted of planting, weeding, watering…that sort of thing. Breckenridge is famous for its stunning flowers, so it was really nice to contribute to the Town’s atmosphere and play my part in making it a great place to live. The overflowing flowerbeds endeared us to locals & tourists alike, so there was no shortage of appreciation. All in all, a great way to spend a summer in a mountain town.

My days off were filled with long hikes with my good friend, Kelsey. We met through work (she was on my “crew”) and we quickly became really good friends. The pictures tell a better story than I can, so all I need to add is that we hiked almost every popular trail within 10 miles of Breckenridge. There was one hike when some of our friends saw a mountain lion!!! (Alas, I missed it). Other highlights of the summer included nights out on town (‘80s night at Salt Creek!!!), trips to Boulder (thrift store!), five days in Arizona, and a visit from my family in August, which we filled with rafting, hiking, biking, and alpine-sliding. And some yummy dinners as well : )

Toward the end of the summer things began to…well…head south. Lowlights include: a broken-down Ford Exploder, bears raiding my garbage can every night, a couple of bounty hunters searching my house for an ex-roommate, a failed relationship, and….well, isn’t that enough? To top it off, I was flat broke and could barely make ends meet. Life in a ski town is lots of fun, but it certainly isn’t perfect. It has its problems, and economic precariousness is something that touches everyone. While I learned to live within my limits, there were some other aspects of the town that hit a little too close to home, and I realized that I needed to leave before I got sucked in. So at the end of September I moved back home to Pennsylvania to stay with my parents while I searched for the next steps to take.

Life in K.S. doesn’t change much, and moving home felt eerily like moving in reverse. But sometimes you have to go backwards in order to move forward, and that was certainly the case for me. I had decided over the summer NOT to go into the Peace Corps, and that left a void to fill at the conclusion of my Breck adventure. I formed a new plan: work for several years in the environmental sustainability field before going to grad school. So I launched a process that will be very familiar to anybody over the age of 21: the Job Search. This involved lots of networking (NOT my favorite activity!), lots of informational interviews, and frequently, frustration. Of course, it didn’t help that my job search coincided with the worst economic recession in one hundred years, but when did I ever do things the easy way????? Grrrrrr….

To make a long story short, I decided to pursue a job AND grad school simultaneously, just in case Plan A (a job) didn’t pan out. So I took my GREs, took the GMAT, applied to environmental policy programs at Oxford and Columbia, and got into Columbia. Also applied to dozens of jobs, interviewed, all that jazz. At one point I was 4 days away from getting on a plane to Paris and working there, and then I got into Columbia. After a month of planning to attend Columbia, I got two job offers in mid-March, which brings me to where I am today: two weeks away from moving to Boston to take a fabulous job. I am amazed that things have worked out so well, because 9 months ago I had no clue how to pull the pieces of my life together following my year in Breck. It goes to show, however, that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel as long as you keep moving and persevere. So off I go, once again, with the intent to stay indefinitely this time. Business school is in the plans a few years down the road, but I could potentially do that in Boston, and for now I am content to work.

My plans for the summer include a trip to Phoenix (grandfather’s 90th birthday!) and a week at the beach in North Carolina with friends. So you might see some postings from there! And I’m already looking for my next big vacation… The short list: Mexico & the Yucatan; Ecuador; Costa Rica & Belize; Czech Republic. Just have to recruit a friend & make some money so I can go!

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