Part I: The Premise of My Favorite Holiday
No matter how I spend it, Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday. If I spent every Valentine’s Day alone, you’d think that I over-romanticize. Technically speaking, however, I’ve only been alone for 92% of Valentine’s Days. Last year on February 14th, my gym played a “funny joke” by making it our quarterly-ish T.G.I.F (This Guest is Free). How someone treats fitness is important to me. I never know when the next TGIF is coming, so I took advantage of the opportunity. I casually asked the guy I was seeing if he’d join me that Wednesday at the gym for our 4th date. He agreed. He texted me a few days later, “I didn’t realize that Wednesday is Valentine’s Day. Do you want to do something, or at least go out to dinner?” I explained that one of my life-long “fantasies” is to kick ass at work, lift, and eat Indian takeout on the couch together. He laughed at the simplicity of my request. We did just that, and nothing more. So, when I say that Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday, it’s not because of high expectations or ideas of grand gestures. That’s overrated, even for me. It’s my favorite holiday because it’s the holiday that symbolizes my passion for love – and makes it ‘acceptable.’ Because to me, every day is Valentine’s Day. I see hearts everywhere. I wouldn’t change that for the world, even if the hearts have nothing to do with me.
This year, I had ambitions to decorate a Valentine’s Day tree and host a party to debut 12 chapters of a draft of “And, it’s a Love Story.” As the days drew closer, I kept writing, but didn’t make any plans to host a party or get the tree. It gives the wrong impression, now that I’m fully clear on what I’m sharing: A girl falls in love with an ‘impossible’ business idea, and struggles to decide between pursuing the impossible and finding comfort. There are a few characters that are crucial to demonstrate learning, but it’s not about any one person. I didn’t communicate it well, but it was never meant to be. That’s too much pressure. It’s the love story between me and the ‘other’ Unicorn -- It’s about how I fell in love with an idea that many would argue is impossible. As for why I’m not sharing 12 chapters today, it’s not in anyone’s best interest to expose the depth of my writing in its true form. If you haven’t figured out by now, my thoughts don’t come out well when I have to censor myself.
All this is to say, my greatest joys in life are the simple things such as lifting weights, my red bow, uninterrupted work time, and sharing in my friends’ success, among countless others. The significance of the date is the fact that I needed a deadline for myself.
Part II: To Move or Not to Move
February 13th, 2025: Everything in my body hurts. My muscles are tight and my eyelids are heavy. My jaw doesn’t want to be locked, but it is. I’m running on 4 hours of sleep and sheer adrenaline of an unexpectedly successful morning. Needless to say, my head is throbbing. My stomach is hungry, I think. I’m cold because it’s 20 degrees and Seattle infrastructure isn’t built to handle it. I’m exhausted from the emotional turmoil of losing yet another best friend. I planned to tell you about it, but the universe is suddenly quiet. I’d rather enjoy the peaceful moment than feed an old narrative. As the physical pain of exhaustion subsides, I’m more at peace than ever. Problems haven’t disappeared, but I have the courage to run towards them every I can. It’s Valentine’s Day eve, which means that tomorrow is the day I committed myself to decide, officially, between Boston and Seattle. I’ve been thinking about moving to a townhouse in Seattle, but I reserved until tomorrow at midnight to change my mind as many times as I want. Depending on how well you know me, I’m sure you’ve heard about my personal Unicorn qualification list. I don’t get to talk about the less glamorous, yet equally important half of this Unicorn list: proactive compromise. As far as I’m concerned, the compromises are equally as important as qualities themselves. Especially when you’re as committed to the “job description” as I am. My non-negotiables are firm boundaries, but my version of balance is that I specifically don’t have opinions about most everything that’s not on the list. It should go without saying that I’m not perfect, nor do I expect anyone else to be.
For example, my Unicorn must be okay with the fact that I regard my career with ambition as if I were a man [Life in Pink]. I can’t predict the future, nor do I want to put myself in a box, but other than family, my work is what’s most important to me. Unfortunately, men are often intimidated by this. They may not like to admit it, but I know the signs. The Unicorn I’m looking for is secure enough in himself to be able to encourage this ambition and unlock its potential for both of us – and still allow me to be a woman that I am. It’s a lot to ask for, I know. Which is why, in ‘exchange’ for a potentially all-consuming career, I’ve always maintained that I can be happy in any metropolitan city where I can make friends – Whether it’s Boston, NYC, Chicago, DC, LA, Seattle or even Austin, I don’t really care, as long as I have my Unicorns (career and partner) and a few close friends. The city is made by the people. It’s not a coincidence that this is the topic of today’s discussion.
February 14th, 2025: Because location has been #1 on my compromise list, I have no gut feeling about where to live. It’s a decision I never planned to make, let alone independently. That being said, I appreciate the silver lining: My lack of opinion on this decision, even in its current form, demonstrates genuine willingness to compromise and create space. Furthermore, it ensures against potential resentment. As much as opinions can change, I’m excited for the day that I don’t have to make this decision. Without a Unicorn to anchor this decision one way or another, I seriously considered moving to Boston over the summer. I spent a month there, waiting for that gut feeling to nudge me to pull the trigger on the cross-country move to be closer to the people who may not be family by blood, but who I’d trust with my life – and whom I have real fun with. As much as I willed that feeling to arrive, it didn’t. I came to recognize that given the circumstances, moving would’ve been an attempt at escapism, and not an efficient solution. The art of “choosing the problems we want to solve” is best described as the choice between problem solving and gracefully letting go.
I’ve tried ‘solving the problem,’ and I’ve tried letting it go. In my attempt to ‘solve the problem’ I changed roles, and threw myself into building a new version of life in Seattle. To be honest, it’s an uphill battle and I’m not convinced it’s worth fighting anymore. As for my attempt to let go gracefully… I wouldn’t call my performance graceful in the slightest. Hey, studying physics concepts to learn how to dissolve resistance is as fun as it is frustrating. The good news is that I’ve also been studying the science of failure and systems design, so I protected myself with guardrails: In absence of a material reason to stay in Seattle on or before February 14th, I’d move to Boston.
About a month ago, someone said that I’m “unpredictable, even to myself.” Ouch, but correct, at the time. This person also reminded me that I’m fortunate enough to be in a rare position of complete control over myself. This shattered a glass ceiling, at a time that I felt trapped by circumstance. Although the words were harsh (omitting a few of the harsher ones, too), it was valuable feedback. My friend helped me pin-point a problem, and the harshness of the words got me excited to solve it – It’s a constant conversation, but I’m proud of my progress so far. My point in sharing this is to say that I don’t feel like leaving Seattle, but I have no logical reason to stay. The majority of my closest friends either already live there or plan to move there within the next six months. Work can be there. Maybe I’m scared or lazy or maybe it’s inertia. Who knows, but it doesn’t matter. A commitment is a commitment, and I’m sick of this narrative of unpredictability -- and chaos, for that matter.
In my journey to re-establish self-discipline, I’ve learned that setting boundaries is a prerequisite for pushing boundaries. In other words, you can’t push a boundary that doesn’t exist. The guardrail that I established is an example of a boundary that I don’t intend to break, regardless of how I feel. I also made a promise to my best friend that I’d move if she moved. Regardless of how I feel, in absence of a material reason to remain in Seattle by the end of today, February 14th, I’m moving to Boston. I have no choice but to get excited about moving to the city where my people are, especially since it means that I get to go wedding dress shopping with another one of my closest friends.
No matter how you slice it, my own bed doesn’t feel like home anymore. What does that say about me? That it’s time to find a new home (or a new bed), probably. And if I happen to lose myself again in the process, I wouldn’t mind a trip to Japan to figure it out. It’s only 2:27pm in the afternoon, which leaves me a few more hours to change my mind, but yeah.
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