I’m not sure what I like less: that I’m still not used to being back, or that eventually I will be used to being back. I really need to move away from Pennsylvania.
I just don’t know how much longer I can stay someplace where October is a winter month.
I think this is mostly for my own sake, so you can feel free to ignore it, but basically, I have four options:
- Stay in State College. Ultimately (if not immediately), I think this would prove to be a mistake. At best, I think it would keep me exactly where I am now, wanting nothing so much as to get out. There are things I like about this town, things for which I’ve stayed and which might tempt me again, but ultimately there is nothing that amounts to a reason to stay. A week away really helped remind me of that.
- Go back to New York. Financially, this probably makes the most sense. It’s not an exceptionally long or necessarily difficult move, my family is there, and the writing/editing jobs I’d like are in greater abundance there than in most other places. But it’s not considerably warmer, or different, and I don’t think I want to live with my parents or work in New York City all that much.
- Go to Austin, Texas. I had fun there last week, and not just because I was on vacation and in good company. I liked the town the first time I saw it a few years ago. I toyed, then, with the idea of moving. It is warmer (by far), and it is decidedly different. But there are things that worry me about it: that it’s far away from family, that it’s hot, that it is different and confusing, that I don’t know many people there, that it might be more than I can handle. And then there’s the job factor, which, to be honest, is probably my biggest concern, the thing that makes such a move not simply frightening but problematic. The other factors worry me (or I wouldn’t have listed them), but I don’t think any of them are deal breakers in and of themselves. Austin might prove to be too hot, too different, too confusing, too far away. But I don’t think any of those things would kill me inside of a year. If they proved to be too much, I could leave. Whereas moving to the city without a job lined up doesn’t even feel like an option, and certainly not an option on which I’d like to follow through. I liked the city, and it intrigues me, but I don’t think moving there for just any job — much less nothing but the vague hope for a job — is a wise move.
- Go Anyplace Else. Basically this amounts to the same thing as Austin but without the passing familiarity. The idea of choosing somewhere at random (even if it’s a somewhat informed, book-learned random) has never exactly appealed to me all that much.
Which, I guess, is just a long, drawn-out way of saying I still ain’t got a clue.