In my final days of 34, I’ve been reflecting on this year’s unexpected life changes and questioning the truisms I used to believe:
Everything in life is beautiful. Doesn’t that also mean nothing in life is beautiful? Everyone in life has control. Doesn’t that also mean no one in life has control?
Perhaps the hill I am biking up is this next chapter in life.
TLDR;
I’m moving back to California at the end of the year.
Jenna will stay in Vermont to build Wababaland.
We will be doing long distance for the first time.
I don’t know how long we will be bicoastal (again) for.
I want to drive a Porsche 911 across the country.
There are new goals Jenna and I want to accomplish. Like investing enough into our family business, Wababaland, to become sustainable. Or saving enough to raise a child in the next year or two. Decisions like these often involve leaving behind a past life (hard to do), or giving up a part of your current life (harder to do).
I wasn’t expecting to close my creative studio this year. Brandon and I have worked on projects together since we started the business in 2018. From the very beginning, we worked remotely between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and in the last few years between California and Vermont.
Looking back, I’m incredibly proud and grateful for our almost decade long run working with over 25 clients like the people at Embr Labs, Roche, and the gaming team at Logitech.
With the COVID era of working behind us, in-office attendance is crawling its way back (for better or for worse). AI is shaking up the jobs in tech as it moves in with its software brain baggage, and those saxophones are getting louder as I summit my mid-30s.
Last month, I accepted an offer to transition from my role as a remote contractor and vendor of 7 years, into a hybrid, full-time position with Logitech G based in California.
For me, it is work that I enjoy doing, with a team I have been working with for as long as I’ve been with Jenna. For us, this means a steady income and basic benefits like health insurance that we need today. Even though it doesn’t look ideal for our relationship today, we see this as just one step of many in our future together.
take one step
Jenna and I have been feeling these life decisions carry more weight with age. The stakes are raised with higher risks and rewards. There’s always this worrying over making the “right” choice: to optimize our time and money with our investments, our retirement, our mortgage, our taxes, all until adult syndrome reminds us there isn’t really a “correct” way to do anything.
Whenever I find myself thinking for far too long about a decision, especially in my profession as a user experience designer, I often have to remind the RISD trained, Forbes 30 Under 30 listed, coastal elite on my shoulder that being an intellectual often means being an idiot about simple things.
The user Life doesn’t always follow our design system master plan or consider our clean data good intentions. There is no guarantee or knowing what will work until we take action.
Just because we can’t see every step or predict the future, doesn’t mean we should lament the past for answers. So I’m exercising my presence with the small stuff:
To feel my eyes water when I read a postcard with a heartfelt message written by my best friends in Corsica on our annual adventure that I wasn’t able to join them for this year.
To taste my dad’s barbecue ribs and its signature flavor when the extended family invites themselves over to stay at our home for a long weekend.
To smell my mom’s candles on the display table at her retirement party and knowing that we’re all remembering the unmistakeable scent of their home.
To listen to Jenna’s voice brighten in a conversation with her childhood friends when she talks about switching careers from being a product manager in tech to becoming a baker.
There is no “best” way to love. But what’s true is that we’re on our own path. We’ll find our way to continue loving each other as spouses, and supporting each other as partners, across these three thousand miles.
take the lemon
I am now over 421 days of writing morning pages. Around this time last year, I was only a few months in with the Artist’s Way, and I wrote myself a new set of guiding principles for living my truth:
Love leads. Follow ease. Little effort. Big emotions. All together.
Since we’ve made the decision, Jenna and I have been slowly painting, piece by piece, what life in 2027 might look like being together and physically apart.
What does this mean for our marriage, done long distance for the first time? How often will we take the flight to see each other? How will I continue to stay involved with the BUMPS hillclimb community? Or keep spending quality time with my parents or childhood friends who supported us with the Wababaland truck?
And what about Jenna who will be making wedding cakes and catering events on her own, and how will I continue to stay close with not just her, but our partners and friends at Eat Vermont and Abracadabra Coffee Co. while I am away?
I’m scared to leave behind what feels like I just started here, but that sadness is true. If we choose not to fight it, sadness can give us insights into ourselves that aren’t always obvious like, what do I want?
I want to experience the Bay Area as an artist and writer, instead of just as a designer and cyclist.
I want to become fluent in Tagalog and get closer with my relatives in California and other Filipinos.
I want to visit Los Angeles and spend time with Brandon and his family in their new home as often as I can.
I want to try new side quests like making more espresso drinks in my free time so I can join Jenna and Wababaland as a barista in the future.
The sweet is only possible because of the sour. It allows the doors to new opportunities to open. It allows new life experiences to present themselves. It allows joy to reveal itself like spring after winter.
take care of yourself
Maybe you’ve also realized that you are delaying your joy for a future version of yourself, that you’re also avoiding asking why you feel guilty for enjoying the life you have right now.
As a kid, taking care of myself meant play: going head to head with my dad on Star Wars Episode 1 Racer and Mario Kart on Nintendo 64, taking turns with my cousins on Gran Turismo and Ace Combat on PlayStation, or racing my cycling friends up Waterman or Jenckes in Providence, RI.
As an adult, it’s not that different: I was writing this on Sunday morning while watching Stage 15 of the Tour de France. We watched the finish of F1 Belgium Grand Prix at SPA before it, and did laps around the Nürburgring on the (Logitech G) racing sim last night.
The culture of productivity and efficiency tends to make us feel shame for playing at this age. What makes this type of play fun for me isn’t about winning (the closest I’ve been to winning a real life race is a 3rd place sprint finish in the Cat 4 race at the Tour of Battenkill in 2015), it’s simply about feeling the speed.
I’ve been thinking about what kind of fun I want to have for my Season 2 of Silicon Valley, and I have enough saved over the past 5 years to treat myself with an old toy.
I want another “cheap” Porsche…an early 2000s 911 coupe, maybe the manual 996 4S with the fried egg headlights that I’ve always wanted to drive growing up. Or if I’m going to daily drive this, maybe a 997 with a PDK to match the 958.
And when it is time to move, I want to drive it back to California.
I want to take the scenic routes, visit the 6 states I haven’t driven through yet, blast M83’s Midnight City with the windows down on the interstate, and spend time visiting friends and relatives at your homes across this country so we can experience how different our lives are now…and go for a spin around the block together.
I want to go slow, but feel fast. This would be my fourth road trip across the country, and I want to fully enjoy it. Even if it means a surprise stop at the mechanic along the way.
give without expectation
While all of this may sound needlessly foolish or like friction-maxxing, the reality is that Jenna and I have been privileged. We live in a state with a lower cost of living than the Bay Area and own a house we couldn’t have dreamed of owning in our 20s. We’re doing more than fine financially for our age. Which makes us question:
What if everything in this life is comfortable?
Maybe the answer is why we’re making this decision. I’ve had the feeling there’s more for me to learn from the west coast before I come back east. The skills, the resources, the version of me I may not have finished becoming. And for Jenna, she gets the room to make decisions that are solely best for her and Wababaland.
The focus is not the distance between us, but the time it gives us as individuals. I’ll continue to share what unfolds at 35 years old. It looks like the long way home, but maybe life will make it feel fast.
-pips
Excited for you to do this Alec, huge decision !! Wishing you both all the best
Very well versed!! Moving…