A Painful 100%
Last month, we went to Kilby Block Party with a bunch of close friends. Before heading to the festival, we had some overpriced ramen somewhere in Downtown Mormon City. Tobi went to grab his hoodie from the hotel when Omar asked me a completely harmless question over horchata iced coffee, 'So, what percentage chance do you think you'll actually move to Germany?'
Every time I talked about moving to Germany, I sounded like I was repeating something Chat GPT said. Better work life balance, state mandated vacation days, generous parental leaves, universal healthcare, and Tobi's family. It's the most logical choice. So, then why am I dragging my feet? Is it because I dreaded learning German? Between hundreds of noun declensions and separable verbs, I couldn't bring myself to study for over a month. I started coming up with reasons why Germany is a bad idea. Like how areas we want to live in aren't diverse enough. Or that the taxes are crazy high. Or that Yuki would hate to be on the plane for 12 hours. It didn't help that Tobi seemed so chill about everything. Standard Tobi. Sometimes it really felt like the entire plan would evaporate if I stopped pushing.
After my silent spiral at the coffee shop, Tobi is back with his hoodie. Omar asks again, both of us this time, 'what percentage chance would you guys say you actually think you'll move?' I honestly don't even remember what number either of us said. It was something above 70% for each of us. What I DO remember saying was that it was a 'painful' percentage. Like, 'a painful 75%'.
I thought about my answer for weeks. Why 'painful'? And why '75%'? If I'm honest, my answer is closer to 100%. Moving next year isn't uncertain. Why am I hesitating in the weirdest ways? It eventually occured to me that maybe I wasn't afraid that we wouldn't move. I was afraid that we would.
I spent months treating my anxiety like a motivation problem. I thought I hated learning German, but that was me grieving. Not because my life in Vegas was bad, but because it wasn't. Maybe that's why I couldn't tell our friends that I was 100% certain we would leave. How do you even grieve something that you still have?
I've lived in Vegas for 20 years. I spent most of my youth here, growing up with my closest friends. I built my nursing career here too. As much as I complain about my work, I still find meaningful purpose in it. And even though I had a turbulent childhood, I somehow built myself a good life with a loving partner of 10 years and our derpy dog, Yuki. I guess I spent so much time chasing a better life that I didn't notice I'd already built one that wasn't so easy to leave behind.
When I was still in grade school, I was always the new girl. Sometimes I knew that I was moving and got to say bye to all of my friends. Other times I didn't. I moved to a different home nearly every school year from Kindergarten through 12th grade.
I became pretty good at packing up and begining again. Change was always something that happened to me. This time, it's different. This is the first time I'm choosing to leave something that I love.
Maybe that's what makes this a painful 100%.