#46: Move To San Francisco On A Whim.

#46: Move To San Francisco On A Whim.

Trust me, moving to San Francisco when you’ve never even been here before is a scary, exciting, exhausting, mentally-draining, trying, thrilling, riveting, adventuresome, life-changing and culture-shocking process. I’ve generously listed out some reasons why to do it (mostly for my own convincing really. 🙂

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  1. It’s border-line crazy and a little out of left field.
  2. You get cold feet and question your sanity –– or what’s left of it. You also probably wonder if you’re losing your hair. And you experience a range of emotions that require sacrifices or opportunity costs.
  3. You most likely have to sell your wheels and most of your belongings before you get out here.
  4. You’re ONLY allowed to check two free bags, max.
  5. You probably have to bite the bullet and sell your car.
    Paying the shipping fare to California costs anywhere from $1,000 to 5,000 dollars and cars are not really SF-friendly. I said goodbye to Ruby, and hello  to a guy from Craigslist named Chris. I sure hope he’s as swell as his ad.
  6. You purposely book a one-way flight that doesn’t return. Southwest has super cheap flights, FYI. My one-way flight was a buck fifty.
  7. You adjust to the jet lag and 3-hour Pacific time zone change.
  8. You become a “transplant” and are labeled as such.
    The one friend I knew coming out here, Rima, filled me on the lingo right away. Transplant was a common term affectionately used for “out-of-town-counterparts.” Little did I know how right she was. On Day #2 at a mixer downtown, my name was tagged “Transplant Lauren.” I’m still called “Transplant Lauren” and have a feeling I will be for a while.
  9. You shift your mindset when it comes to age. Out here, age is just a number out here –– whether it be 28, 32 or 41 – and the Bay somehow makes you younger in spirit every day. There’s actually a term for that I found out on my first day: Peter Pan Syndrome.
  10. Anything goes really means anything goes.
    On Day #3, I bumped into a flight instructor at Walgreen’s who offered me sky diving lessons over the wineries in Marin County. I almost took him up on it –– but thankfully did not.
  11. You adjust to some basic realities.
    There are more murals, hippies, cyclers and recylers, permanent coffee stains, endless festivals, ever-existent music scores, swash-buckling, jacket-weather fiends and techies existing here than Google will ever tell you.

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Yet, moving to San Francisco on a whim, has been one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself (besides taking that self-discovery road trip to New Orleans in 2011.)

It’s really just as everyone describes: An amalgamation of every creature of human species. Living under a laid-back California, terra cotta-styled roof. Where it never seems to rain. For sure.