moving to HI, part 2: getting here!

After I got the job here, I went back to CA to pack up and get my life together (the story of how and wy I got the job is here.)I landed in Hawaii with two suitcases and my laptop/camera bag. Besides regular girl stuff (clothes, too much makeup, a lot of hair straighteners/curlers/etc. literally all I packed was:
- my yoga mat
- two Jason Segel movies ('Forgetting Sarah Marshall' and 'I Love You, Man.' obvs)
- my mini blender and a bag of protein shakes
- a framed picture of Jenni and I that she gave to me the day before I left and made me cry at the mall
- an Indiana Jones hat my dad bought me in Disneyland
Clearly my priorities were established: get my beach body right and look like a bad ass crocodile wrangler doing so. And if all else fails, Jason Segel will console me.

Packed Jenni along for the ride!

Other than that pile of random stuff, I left everything else that I owned in California. I sold almost all of my furniture after my last move. I didn't ship my car over (it costs a thousand dollars! Ay yi yi!) Part of me feels like a crazy person for leaving all my stuff and catching a flight to an island in the middle of the ocean on a whim, and the other part of me still feels crazy, but crazy like a fox. This is an option, people. You are allowed to move to Hawaii. Realistically, what have I got to lose? If I don't like it, I'll move back. If I love it, I'll stay. At the worst, I'm out some money and I'll go home looking all bronzed and super blonde. There are worse ways to be defeated.

That's not to say that I left without thinking it through or having anxiety. I am an over analyzer by nature and I made enough pros and cons lists to go to the moon and back. I knew it was going to hurt the most to leave my parents. Some family members that I'm just now getting to know (that's a whole other blog post, trust that) are now an ocean away. All my friends' babies are going to be toddlers the next time I see them. My littlest nephew, who just got to know me, will forget me again. My pregnant friends will squeeze out their babies and I won't get to hold the tiny newborns while they're still wrinkly and and make my cry because they're so little and amazing. Leaving my workout buddies pretty much guarantees that I'll never work out like that again. I knew all of these things, but I also knew that if I never took a chance that I would never come close to meeting the goals that I set for myself a long time ago and ignored because it was easier to stay in a rut than make a change. Anyone who is meant to be in my life will be in it, even if it's via text, phone and the faces (time and book.) Thankfully I have a solid little crew already in Hawaii who have helped me so much and made me feel at home even though I'm still futon surfing and living out of my suitcases. I'm sad to leave people I love behind, but I couldn't have had better people waiting for me with open arms here.

my welcoming committee! Akalei is my name in Hawaiian :)