Into the Land Down Under.

Oh, hello there, Blog. Seems we haven’t spoken in quite some time. Sorry about that. It turns out that I don’t usually write about relationships or professional endeavors; because that’s pretty much been my entire life over the fall, I’ve not had much space to write about anything.

But times are changing (for good and for bad). I’m now in Australia for the whole month of February, partially for dance events but primarily for vacationing and recovering from the heartbreak that has been the past several months. My tour of Australia was booked over a year in advance — the first time any event had booked me so far into the future — and would be my first trip to the land Down Under. In preparation for my trip, I managed to have the presence of mind to purchase a Lonely Planet book and order In A Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson, as a way of introducing me to this peculiar continent. Aside from these two actions, I departed from the US decidedly unprepared and having spent very little time planning, I’ve just been so busy. 

The day after my arrival in Melbourne, I was whisked away to the magical setting for Cider House Blues, at which I taught this past weekend. Before departing, I came across this delightful little road sign, which I wanted to share as a brief aside before diving into the weekend festivities...

 

Belonging to the parents of one of the organizers, CHB takes place on a farm outside of Melbourne, about an hour’s drive away. The trip out there was quite pleasant, and featured interesting road art along the way. Evidently, there’s been a big push by the Australian government to beautify the country highways with large-scale art projects. My favorite is the de-scaled hotel that’s not a hotel. 

 

Aside from the pleasing road art and conversations in the car, we were treated to an decidedly beautiful sunset. Coming from Seattle, where it was recently 40ºF recently, I appreciated this resplendent display of Summer.

The farm is stunningly beautiful. The pictures don’t quite capture the serenity that is this place, but they offer a starting point. This panorama was taken from their porch that doubles as an outdoor dining room.

After a leisurely morning spent sunning myself and sipping tea, I got to work tying up some loose ends for work and eventually around to lesson planning for the weekend. At some point, I took a break to exercise (Insanity all the way!), which elicited bemused commentary from others. I find it interesting how people often feel driven to comment when observing others exercising outside the context of a gym. 

The day passed quickly in the way productive days so often do -- i.e. quickly -- leaving me unprepared mentally and emotionally for the arrival of CHB participants by the evening. As the crowd grew, I found myself increasingly shy and overwhelmed by the prospect of being social with a huge group of people whom I’ve never met. It made me appreciate the long-growing friendships I’ve developed with scenes throughout North America and Europe, that I can find familiar faces almost anywhere, but here I found myself in a completely new spot and only familiar with the organizing team. Making matters worse, my internal monologue took a turn for the worse and began to dwell on depressing events of the past couple months, further stripping me of my usual confidence summoned by being a dance teacher at a dance weekend. I felt utterly incapable of putting on my amiable teacher hat, of bringing the party, of opening my heart chakra and sharing joy and love of dance with everyone. While I couldn’t do it authentically, I forced myself to go out and dance and put on a happy face because it was the right thing to do — not only in a professional sense, but also to drag myself (begrudgingly) out of my blues. Those psychological studies that show that facial expressions can influence your mood can’t all be wrong. I had some pleasant dances and people were categorically kind and friendly, but it still felt like a slog and I was incapable of genuinely connecting. 

Friday was challenging, but Saturday and Sunday saw a marked improvement for me. The classes went splendidly, for one. I love teaching abroad, particularly because the students are so often more keen to learn. I was able to teach one of my classes outside in the sunshine on their outdoor dance floor, which delighted me to be out in the sun (with sunscreen, of course). I find that classes are a great way for me to connect with large groups of people, it’s effective at breaking the ice. Where I couldn’t find the right spirit to interact with them on Friday, by Saturday afternoon I felt relaxed and confident and able to make small talk with people. People saw in me the goofy, slightly awkward person that I actually am, not some scary intimidating teacher who looks down my nose at people, and I think that let them open up more as well. Throughout the rest of the weekend I had the pleasure of connecting with a number of kind-hearted, engaging locals, either in receiving earnest compliments about a class or over sharing a scrumptious meal, all of which were communal. 

I want to give huge props to the kitchen team, for their hard efforts to fit a diverse range of dietary restrictions and still have everyone feel nourished. I ate super well this weekend, always with an excellent balance of greens, grains, and protein. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the presence of mind to photograph any of the spreads — probably because I was in such a ravenous state that I could think of nothing else than to stuff my face with delicious food. 

Shortly after Saturday dinner, we convened for a Blues dancing competition, but with a special twist: it took place on a bouncy castle. It was Australia’s — nay, I daresay the World’s — inaugural Bouncy Castle Blues competition. And oh, what a glorious sight it was to behold. I had the special honor of judging said competition, which I can assure you put a lot of pressure upon me to carefully weigh the balance if Blues aesthetic with bouncy castle awesomeness -- not a feat suitable for an inexperienced judge. Being able to say that I professionally judged a bouncy castle Blues competition is perhaps one of my greatest achievements in my career to date.

I captured one of the preliminary rounds on video. I did a terrible job maintaining the dancers in the frame, because I was scribbling down notes at the same time (I was judging, remember, and that’s a very serious business). 

Saturday night was particularly magical. It began with dancing outside under a crystal-clear starry night sky. Here’s the dance floor (I couldn’t get a good photo during the night):

Being so far away from civilization and with the porch lights dimmed, one could easily see the Milky Way while dancing. Another reminder of us being quite remote was the wonderful background din of crickets, frogs, and who knows what else that provided a gentle hum to the entire night.

 

The live band that played that night rocked my socks off. The duo, Wilson & White, play a fine pre-war Blues set, I was transported to an era when Delta Blues was alive and well. I danced so hard that night, never missing a single song from the band. I was grateful for the band breaks, because it meant I could take a break as well to water and feed myself. During those breaks, I had the pleasure of chatting with locals and getting to know them better. After their second-to-last set, the entire party was given makeshift lanterns and we made a little procession off to a shack about a hundred yards away, where the band was set up for their final set. I returned the next morning to take pictures, so just imagine it being dark and lit with tea lights. Someone was set up inside the shack handing out cocktails.

Here’s where the band played.

I haven’t danced this hard in a long time, it was a real gift to receive. The musicians had a great time interacting with the dancers, and the dancers were clearly eating up everything they were being offered. The whole night was filled with so much win. Once the live band wrapped up, I took a wonderfully long break from dancing to recover my energy, then headed back out for dancing until 5:30am. Along the way, I enjoyed some hilarious conversations that probably wouldn’t make much sense when not deliriously tired and riding high on dance.

Sunday glided along in the usual fashion of days that follow staying up all night dancing and then teaching the following morning: filled with a lot of tea and stumbling over my words. Students were still keen to learn, though. I taught a two-part series on turning technique, which was astonishingly popular. People here clearly want to dive into the nitty-gritty details of dance mechanics, and I’m very happy to oblige. While they’re all business sometimes when working on their dancing, they also appreciate the importance of community and having a good time. We wrapped up the weekend classes with a heart-warming, community-focused class that involved a lot of student discussions and massage circles. 

The event formally concluded on Sunday evening, with no party that night, primarily because we were reasonably far from the city and people had to work the next day. I was perfectly happy with this arrangement, because it meant I could go to bed at a reasonable hour. After dinner among a smaller core group of people (primarily organizers), we went out to meet and feed the alpacas and pony on the farm.

The alpacas had been freshly shorn a week ago.

Monday was a perfect recuperation day, primarily spent lazing about in the sun. I wandered about the farm, taking photos, sipping tea, and chatting with people. By midday, we departed to briefly visit a winery (so delicious) and then stopped by a nearby beach for a couple hours. After the intensely packed weekend, I was all too happy to let the hours slip by without my eventfulness.

With the increased peacefulness, I did find myself returning to more somber thoughts of life back in the US, of current struggles, losses, and sorrows. The contrast between the beauty and joy of the weekend and the emotions I was presently feeling was stark and uncomfortable. I’ve come to expect these sort of post-event depressions, even if they’re brief, it’s a natural way of my body balancing for all the endorphins I’d been creating through the weekend. Not to discount the reality of my thoughts, but at least I could acknowledge the context of them feeling particularly painful in the moment, because of me recovering from the weekend. Still, I appreciated the wonderful company shared with a few friends whom I trust. Walking along the beach, I tried to open my heart to the world in some hopes the sun’s summery rays would penetrate all the way through and light me from the inside. It helped, just a little.

 

 

 

 

Losing my home.

I lost my home yesterday. After four months of living in a coop, my trial period came to an end and the voting members decided to have someone else stay on instead of me. 

In no exaggerated terms, my heart broke in reaction. I love this place, it felt like my ideal environment from the first time I visited. I was happy there. And I got along very well with the other housemates. I always looked forward to return home to that warm space filled with positive energy.

Their decision, although devastating, does not come as a surprise. I have been out of the house quite a lot over the past two months. They want someone who can be around the house more often to contribute to upkeep. 

Unlike last time two years ago when I became homeless, this time I do not relish the adventure of living without a base. I had allowed myself (foolishly?) to set down little roots here in Seattle. Now I feel tired and unready for the challenge. But what choice do I have? I am traveling extensively for the next several months and will have no time to conduct another housing search. I can't possibly live on my own: I have so few possessions, it would take a monumental effort to furnish my own place. 

Time for a new adventure...

Friendship.

Sometimes, I feel like I don’t have any friends. It's a deep-seated gremlin I’ve dealt with since childhood, best friends (ha ha) with Self-Doubt: you're alone because you don’t have friends, you don’t have friends because people don’t like you, etc. etc. We often talk to ourselves in ways usually reserved for Internet trolls. I've been thinking often on this theme for the past few months.

The trouble with this particular gremlin is that there’s some truth to it: being a traveling dance instructor has brought me friends around the world, but they’re a certain kind of friendship. I don’t have friends I see all that often, the kind I can always call at any hour to hang out or talk, the kind where there’s a steady and regular connection, the kind that know me completely. Instead, I have friends with whom I’ll connect deeply for a couple hours a few times a year. I want (we all want?) to be understood, to be seen, so perhaps in some small way I blog because I want to be understood, since I don’t have the benefit of having someone to randomly chat with about these thoughts.

Much of building friendships is about regular interaction, the exchange of little tidbits of intimacy. Sometimes, this social exchange can’t be proxied or skipped no matter the depth of connection. Being geographically untethered has been a privilege and introduced me to many wonderful people, but it also doesn’t leave me enough opportunity to build these bonds.

Even if I were in the same place (as I’ve seen myself do more recently), life simply gets busy on both sides of the equation. I lose myself in my programming work and prioritize the next code commit over cooking properly for myself or spending time in the company of others. Programming is fun, addictive, and can seem so much easier than engaging in other enriching activities, much like watching TV or playing games. (Come to think of it, I’m very lucky to have found a profession that enthralls me.) Meanwhile, people in my circles are equally busy. I've been drawn to them because they're driven and inspired, they're doing a lot with their lives, and it means there's not time in the week for regular interaction.

Time with friends usually needs to be scheduled, which leaves me in a conundrum on my days with nothing planned: I find myself craving social interaction, but only once I’m in the middle of a block of free time and everyone already is occupied. One solution might be to more proactively schedule my evenings with others. Generally my weekday evenings are left untouched, so I’ll find myself working late “for lack of other things to do,” but if I more proactively booked my evenings in advance this problem would not arise as often.

But, there's more to it than simply not having much time. I have an aversion to interrupting people's workflows, or catching people off guard. I'm loathe to call people on the phone, lest they feel pressured to say “yes” to an offer to hang out, yet sometimes this kind of synchronous communication is necessary to turn hangout plans into a reality. If I'm feeling down or craving human connection, I can’t (read: won’t) just call them up without warning and emotionally dump all over them. For this reason, it feels like I can’t reach out to anyone when I get stuck in a negative thought spiral. I've always envied those whom can call up others on the fly for emotional support. Aside from romantic partnerships, I don't have really have that. Well, I know I do, but I can't imagine myself exercising that privilege. It speaks to another trope of my life: "don't be a burden.” The potential for others to view me as needy strikes me as so noxious that I rarely reach out for support. (The negative feedback loop here is not lost on me: the desire to not be a burden reduces the frequency and intimacy of my interactions with friends, which does these friendships no favors at all.)

In the vein of “reaching out,” I even find it difficult to do it when I’m feeling great. Inviting people to “hang out” does not come naturally to me, I never have the courage for it. (You may find it amusing that I would think it takes courage to invite people over, but for me it does. I don’t get it, but it does.) I’m bizarrely uncreative when it comes to thinking of activities. I’m utterly incapable of organizing groups of friends for a gathering; at best, I can arrange 1:1 interactions. Besides (I think to myself), it’s more fun to be here by yourself and just do some more work, isn’t it? I convince myself that I lack the energy for small-group social interaction, despite consistently finding these exchanges to be renewing. It feels like I missed this lesson in childhood, I never learned how to invite groups of friends, and now there’s this huge segment of valuable information missing from my knowledge base.

Being a recurrent theme in my life, I've made it a new life project to address this feeling of not having any friends. During my journey at Burning Man, I set a new intention: to deepen connections within my friend sphere; this intention immediately began manifesting beautiful moments in life. 

That night, I went out on my own to see Beats Antique. It was a bitterly cold night, dropping below freezing. At the show, it took a while for me to get into the flow; the music was phenomenal, but there were just so many people there. Taking a deep breath and wading deeper into the throng, I found an ideal spot to set down my adventure pack and get my dance on. Before long, I was greeting others with a more open heart, giving hugs, jamming together a bit. This may seem like nothing substantial — it’s what I do all the time at dance events — but being at a non-social dance event gave it significance, for I haven’t been able to access that side of me.

On the dance floor, I found a person to actually riff with. We zeroed in on each other, dancing jubilantly and freely. I introduced the person to partnered dancing and they instantly fell in love with it. I was honored to offer that experience to someone and get them hooked on social dancing. While others would normally lose interest and return to their own internal experience, here was a person who wanted to share and create together. Finding such a person was like a breath of fresh air. It struck me how personally I take it to be in a dance environment where everyone stays internally-focused, even in response to my efforts for play and interaction; I take it personally and question if I’m not engaging as a dancer. (Yes, I realize the ridiculousness of that statement.) 

The network effect played its part as my connection with a single person expanded to include four others, all of whom were full of love and joy. As night gave way to day and the party wound down, we ventured out into the playa with wonderment in our hearts: what a truly amazing show that could captivate us and keep us in one place the whole night, what a fantastic gift of the playa to meet all these people with open hearts, and what a beautiful morning it was proving to be.

We visited The Woman (an art installation) for a while and there greeted the dawning sun. We all got to talking about intentions we brought with us to the playa, and each vulnerable exchange was acknowledged and cherished. I heard poetry, stories, and shared intentions that took my breath away.

Eventually, we visited Braccus, a well-known and beloved art car shaped like a dragon. There was a large crowd formed there, so we figured something good must be going on. We stumbled upon a phenomal group out of Australia playing tribal electronic music. We only caught the tail end of it, but the music was profoundly beautiful. After the show's conclusion, we decided to part ways -- hunger was at last besetting us, and it would soon be time for sleep. But we took a quick photo of us before we departed.

With the setting of this intention, other parts of life have begun to fall into place. Everywhere I go, there have been wonderful opportunities to repeatedly connect with others. "Repeatedly" is the operative word here -- my travels have never been short on meaningful interactions with others, but they are typically one-off exchanges. With life moving so fast, I'm grateful for the opportunity to interact with the same people more frequently than once every couple months. I hope that I can continue to hold this intention in my heart and create a new space in my life for people important to me, to always remember what nourishes and sustains me. 

I'm deeply grateful for the moments that life has brought me since setting this new intention. Over the past several months, I have been gifted with wonderful opportunities to meet new people and deepen connections with people important in my life. It feels like there's a new chapter in my life, one where I finally get around to addressing this challenging aspect of my history.

The past three dance events, Seattle Fusion Festival, bamBLOOZled, and Blues Muse, have felt like special opportunities to connect with friends. Without having to work at any of them, I could take the time to relax and enjoy time with my people. I'm fortunate to have a growing number of people in my circles who have known me for many years and seen me through many phases of life; there's something irreplaceable about such experiences.

My birthday is just around the bend -- two hours from the time of this writing, in fact. I find myself returning to the theme of friendship around the time of my birthday, reflecting upon the people in my life. Yesterday, my partner organized a special birthday brunch with some my dear friends from Portland. I don't like asking to be the center of attention, but it feels super special when others make it so, which made this celebration all the more powerful to me. When I know I'm surrounded by and accepted wholly by friends, I can open up, be myself, and live vulnerably. 

I think the theme of friendship will always be a challenging one for me, as is often the case with deep-seated issues from childhood. But I'm grateful to find the universe offering so many great opportunities to process the emotions and to recognize how I am cherished and loved by many, and how insanely lucky I am for it. 

A missed opportunity.

I recently changed my corporate alias at AWS from the mangled, computer-generated "aandsm" to the perfectly reasonable and professional "andrewsm." In fact, it's the same as what I had at Stanford. andrewsm feels well-worn to me. 

But I made a choice for andrewsm over a different one, and it's a choice that I now (surprisingly) regret. I could have been called:

smandrew. 

Hilarious, right? I thought so too. But I didn't have the courage to take the name. Perhaps it was too silly, or people reading my email tag would find it strange without the context of knowing me (and how it's goofiness fits me quite well). In that moment, I prioritized professionalism and cleanliness. 

Immediately after the change was finalized, I began to feel those familiar pangs of regret over not choosing the brave and hilarious option, over not having the courage to take a chance. It represented a missed opportunity to bring a little levity into my corporate existence. It felt like I had made a critical error in judgment, one that would haunt me forever. It deeply affected me; that evening, I was emotionally shriveled and had no ebullience in my heart. 

It has clearly taken on a significance greater than itself. It beckoned all of my insecurities around being the unremarkable asocial Andrew in professional environments, an Andrew that has a difficult time opening up and connecting and is ultimately unworthy of social belonging. It summoned my self-judgments over being risk-averse and always taking the sure bet. Gremlins with a long history came out to set upon my ego and make me feel like crap. 

I didn't realize right away what was going on. Amidst the intensity of my usual work days I couldn't sort through my feelings. In fact I sort of stumbled upon it, talking about the username change and then being blindsided by its attendant emotions. I realized how out-of-touch I can become with my heart when I'm in those work environments. It's like a switch that I turn on (or off?) to access my focused and professional side. 

Regret is a familiar presence in my life, something I unfortunately come by very easily even though I've dealt with it actively in recent years. Part of why I so easily fall into indecision and so highly value information gathering is that I perceive a steep emotional cost to making the "wrong" choice. Even after taking courses in decision analysis that taught me about tha evaluating a decision based on the outcome is nonsensical, I still instinctively do it. Here it caught me off guard by latching onto a relatively insignificant life event. In the grand scheme, this event is so obviously not a big deal, and yet when I finally acknowledged and felt the emotions it ballooned out of proportion to its actual significance. 

So here I am now sharing this event as a way of processing it. I could have achieved something brilliant with my username, but it didn't happen. Life *will* move on. andrewsm will stick, people will think nothing of it, and I will always quietly be "smandrew" on the inside. Also, I know what to pick the next time I have to pick a corporate login. 

Competitions and good times at PBEx.

Last weekend over the 4th of July, I attended the Portland Blues Experience, a perennial favorite event. Unlike standard dance events, PBEx is an experience unto itself (thus making it aptly named — it is not an “exchange” per se).

PBEx differentiates itself by taking focus away from the dancing and placing it on the music. The event is run in parallel with the Waterfront Blues Festival, the second largest Blues music festival in the country. PBEx only runs late nights and always features more live bands. It breaks the standard form of 3 nights of evening + late night dances. Without the focal point of evening dances, attendees are given free reign to make each day and evening what they will. It’s more about the musical, social, and cultural experience of Portland, shared with dancers. I love it. 

PBEx was a very special time for me this year. One of the reasons were the competitions on Sunday.

Rachel Stirling and I decided to join forces for both competitions this year. We didn’t really prepare at all — as would be expected when living in different cities — but have always relished dancing with each other. We went in with the expectation that we’d have a load of fun goofing around. And we did exactly that.

I think it’s always best to approach comps with the mission to have fun. It certainly worked out well this time: for the second year in a row, I took 1st place in both the Jazz and Blues dance competitions.

We were even featured in an article about the dance competition in The Oregonian.

I am so happily surprised and grateful and overwhelmed by this result. I never dare allow myself to believe that I’m  worthy of pulling off something like this. Yet here it is. (And for those who are long-time readers, you’re already familiar with my opinions about competitions and the kind of (limited) insight they can give you about dancing.) I recognize that competing is an extremely specific skill set, but it’s one I want to cultivate because it helps me get hired as a dance instructor. The results from PBEx are reassuring to me that I haven’t lost my edge despite my recent heavier focus on software engineering. It was a powerful moment of external validation: not necessary, but so freaking awesome to receive it.

Also, it is just so much fun to bring that energy and magic to the dance floor to inspire other people. We both received praise from non-dancer spectators, saying how wonderful it was to watch us dance together and how in sync we looked. I also received a number of touching and humbling compliments from fellow dancers and judges, all of which make me feel deeply grateful.

A few weeks ago while examining the next year of my life, I set an intention to affirm my presence as a dance teacher in the US. While extremely grateful for my success in Europe, it has come at the unfortunate cost of having lost a lot of awareness about me stateside. The phrase “out of sight, out of mind” definitely applies in the dance scene. Right now, I may be well loved and recognized by fellow instructors and friends, but I don’t have the kind of presence that gets organizers to reach out and hire me. With my new job allowing me to work remotely and providing an income stream to support participating in events without teaching, I see this next year as a great opportunity to train and compete. 

I’d say my mission is off to an excellent start. Next up: Nocturne Blues.

Achieving a dream conceived two years ago.

(This was a note I posted to Facebook, but putting it here as well for memory's sake.)

Two years ago, I began a journey to teach myself programming, forming a crazy dream to one day travel the world teaching dance on weekends and working remotely during the week.
Today, I am overwhelmed with excitement (and a little nervousness) to announce the start of my new job at Amazon Web Services, where I will be following exactly that same dream.

At AWS, I will be a Web Development Engineer II (i.e. mid-level) as a founding member of a new team within Kinesis. We are building a brand new feature to help users gain better insights into their streaming data. I will be involved with the entire lifecycle, from product brainstorming all the way through shipping. 

I'll be loosely based in Seattle for the next couple months before once again living on the road more consistently. It's really happening.

-- Appreciations --
Bobby: thank you, again, for that serendipitously timed conversation two years ago when you encouraged me to start programming, convinced me that a CS degree was unnecessary, and showed me a path to become a software engineer.
Leo, Brandon, Hugh, Shawn, Michael, Arlo, Jeremy, Joachim, Ian, Stryder, Joshua, David, and countless others: thanks for the random bits of advice, encouragement, or general geeking out about programming that helped me along the way. Also, for the support to follow my dream and help me believe that it would be possible.
Anoakie: thank you for the invaluable mentorship you have provided. Your immense generosity has humbled me and I look forward to a chance when I can do the same for others.
Hack Reactor: thanks for a crazy intense learning environment to round out my autodidactic approach and give me the experience in web development to land this job.
Karim, Jake, and Ruben: thanks for being amazing teammates at Hack Reactor.
Sarah: you connected me to the opportunity, you convinced them to phone screen me when I wasn't sufficiently compelling on paper, and you were my champion and support buddy through the whole process. It is not overstating it to say that I would not have this job without you. Thanks so much.

Potential paths.

[Note: this one is backlogged as well. Wrote it during my job search, I still find it interesting some I'm sharing it here.]

The end of this week will mark one of the more significant and difficult decisions in my life: where to work.

I've been so fortunate to have an unexpectedly successful job hunt. More details on that to come, because I find them interesting, but first I want to reflect upon the more pressing question: which company do I join? There are many to choose from, and each have their own strengths and represent a unique path in my life and career.

While there are several different roads to follow, I think there's one obvious division: whether to go with a co-located job or a 100% remote job.

I managed to find a completely distributed team, a small engineering team working together from around the world, that would give me the flexibility on geography and hours that I've always dreamed about. When I say "always dreamed about," I mean that this hypothetical situation was a big inspiration to take programming more seriously as a potential career path; it's hard to find engineering careers copacetic with a wanderer's lifestyle.

Now that it's in my grasp, I find myself questioning the validity of that dream. Will I actually succeed in such a self-driven environment? Will I find myself lacking human contact? Will I be able to juggle the responsibilities of work with the challenges of being on the road? These are large questions to which I have no answers. When I'm feeling down, my responses are far more pessimistic.

I waffle back and forth in my confidence about the suitability for remote work in the next stage of my life. Whether I want to keep living the way I am now, out of a suitcase, or whether I need to take a break and set down some roots. Living nomadically presents unique challenges, the most pressing of which is that the consequences can be much worse when you get swamped or overloaded. I've managed to generally avoid it (happily), but it's critical to be on top of where I am staying next. When on the road, I have to keep swimming hard to keep afloat, and I'm concerned that the new career will be enough that I lose my endurance.

I suppose it would be possible to work remotely and still be based somewhere. That could make sense, although at that point I question if I'm better off just picking a location and sticking with it. I have lots of big dreams about being able to tour around the US and Europe. I could go to various cities and train with teaching partners, no longer limited by where I'm getting dance gigs. I could attend events around the country for the fun of it, to network and compete and train, without worrying about not working a dance event that weekend. It could be a new era of focusing on training and building my presence in the US. And of course, the flexibility to visit Europe is massively appealing as well. Given my objectives in dance, anything short of working 50% remote would not allow for enough time and flexibility.

When I'm in a good mood, the choice seems clear: go with the remote gig. When I'm tired or underfed or under-cuddled or who knows what else, that certainty waivers. My mind is highly opinionated about whether I can handle it, and neither side seems to have won the debate.

Aside from fears that I can't cut the tech-dancer-nomad life, there are two other considerations that draw me toward the other path.

First, large brand-name corporations -- the kind that can gold-plate your resume -- don't accommodate remote work, so if I wanted a classic route through software engineering then I'll have to give up my hopes of traveling for some time. This consideration may not be a big deal; my achievements will speak for themselves, regardless of the company they are for. There may be some benefit to brand recognition, but it is not crucial to succeeding in the tech industry.

The second consideration is that the sustainability startups that I've spoken with all are co-located and want to keep it that way. (Which is reasonable: hybrid teams are tough.) While the remote team has an excellent social mission to improve the world, it is not specifically in the domain of sustainability, something that has been my passion for eight years. When I started my job search, I hoped to find a company that would explore the intersection of software and sustainability. I have found a handful of said companies, all of which are fantastic, but suddenly I have reservations of joining on account of the remote work consideration. If I step away from the sustainability industry right now, will I ever be able to return to it? Will the increasingly divergent "story of my life" become too unwieldy to convince potential employers that I'm big on the sector? I recognize the mentality of lack here, but it's a tough one to shake.

Every single opportunity is wonderful in its own right, so now I'm left struggling to choose between fantastic options. It may seem hard to believe that so much emotional angst could be generated from such a choice, but there you have it. This is not the first time I've experienced significant turmoil when choosing between two appealing paths. It probably won't be the last. These represent pivot points in my life, the kind of points that clearly indicate when my life became one thing and not another. I am in a world of constantly shifting ideas, balancing qualities, and huge uncertainties. Every hour brings a new consideration, a new conviction of what path to take. These life moments are very difficult for me to navigate.