Sunday, March 23, 2014

The Quintessence of Life

Sidenote: This makes me miss my longboard

"To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls,
draw closer, to find each other, and to feel.
That is the purpose of life."

On Friday, Colt took me to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty at the dollar theater. 
We saw it when it first came out in theaters, and we both loved it, so we went and saw it again this weekend. 
If you haven't seen it, go. 
It's funny, sweet, contains a great message, and it has Jose Gonzalez on the soundtrack. 
So,
it's basically perfect.

We liked the movie a lot the first time around, but this time, the message touched my heart and it felt kind of personal.

Over the last couple of weeks, Colt and I have been trying to decide between a few different job opportunities to pursue after he graduates in April. We finally made our decision: 
after my contract is up in May, we will be moving to Philadelphia, PA 
so Colt can begin his internship with Boeing.

We're moving there with the assumption the city looks exactly like this. Don't disappoint me, Philadelphia.
Boeing has been our first choice since September
but when the opportunity finally arrived, 
we really had to sit down and think about it.

We are a little bit scared (me most, probably).

Our life is in Utah. I've been living here for almost eight years; 
Colt has been here for over five. 

When I moved here for college, I never thought I would start to think of it as home,
but that's what it has become. 

We have a life here. 
My job is here, we have family close by 
(not to mention the family that lives out of state is still just a one day drive away), 
we have wonderful friends, an indoor soccer team, an apartment we love. 
We met here, got married here. 
I know my way around SLC, Provo, Highland, Spanish Fork. It's familiar.
It's home now.

I cried the night we made our decision to leave. 
"Are we sure it's the right thing?"
I've never been further east than Colorado.
We are west coast kids, born and bred.
We have no family over there. 
No friends (yet).
I'm 72% sure I will get mugged.
I feel like a country mouse moving to the big city...
And I'm not even from the country. 

Plus, if all goes according to plan and Colton gets hired on full-time with Boeing, it's likely we won't be staying in Philadelphia. So it will be tricky for me to find a job for three months and figure out where I should look for a job in the fall, since we likely won't know where we're going until the end of the summer.

However...

Neither of us can deny the sense of calm and excitement we feel when we think about Boeing and moving to Philly. 
It feels like a good decision.
It feels like the best choice for our family. 
It feels right.

But at the same time, the thought of leaving with no plans to return-it's sad. 

Anyways, that's where Walter Mitty comes in. 
The quote posted above is the motto of "Life," the magazine that Walter works for.
His love interest also said something that resonated with me:
"Life is about courage, and going into the unknown." 

Not going to Philadelphia because we're sad and scared to leave Utah aren't good reasons to stay here.
In fact, if you're scared of something, I think that's a pretty good indicator you should give it a try.

In the movie, Walter makes poor life choices and hops on board a helicopter with a drunk pilot. I'm hoping our move to Philly is slightly less reckless.
Life isn't about sticking with things that are familiar and comfortable, just because striking out and doing something new makes you afraid, or because it's inconvenient.
It's about drawing closer to each other, seeing the world, finding yourself and God, having new experiences and learning from them.

I feel like Philadelphia is an opportunity for us to really start living our life...
and we don't even have to fly to Greenland, or scale the Himalayas of Ungoverned Afghanistan to do it, like Walter did.
Maybe we will one day. 
But for now, Philadelphia is enough.

East coast or bust, yeah?

Plus...
These homies live in Philadelphia.


Look how happy they are.


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