Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes

Let me catch you up to speed because a lot has happened since I last checked in. Here's a blog I started almost a month ago...which helps to explain where I was and what I was thinking at the time:

Monday Sept. 20, 2010

Well, I made it home. I left my little house near downtown Sacramento on Sunday the 5^th. I drove to Salt Lake City and spent the night with TJ. We got up Monday morning (Labor Day) and had breakfast at a place in the mountains. In the early afternoon I picked my friend Rebecca up at the SLC airport and we drove the rest of the way across the United States until I landed in Lake Wylie, SC on Thursday afternoon, the 9^th.

So I’ve been here for 11 days. Suffice to say, it feels like a hurricane blew through my life and left a path of destruction in its wake. I’m searching through the ruins and remains, hoping to stumble across something that I can build off of. I can’t lie, I feel a little lost…well, actually…I feel a lot lost. I know I wasn’t happy in Sacramento. I know I wasn’t happy at my old station. But I’m not convinced this is the right place for me either.

All of my “stuff” is in my mom and dad’s basement. I stayed at their house for a week and a half and we all almost killed each other…things are still tense. They feel like I don’t appreciate everything they’ve done for me. They feel this way because for the past few days I’ve been kinda down…second guessing myself and my decision…feeling scared and overwhelmed…uncertain. I guess I haven’t been as happy and over-the-top as they think I should be. But see, I’m an internalizer. I think a lot and I hold it all in…I’m still processing everything that’s happened and I find myself becoming withdrawn because it’s just easier to keep myself quiet in times of chaos. That, and if people really knew the thoughts that ran through my head they’d think I was crazy…I find it better only to share those thoughts with people like myself who understand from whence they originate.

Yeah, so my parents and I are in the midst of one big misunderstanding right now. I don’t know how to make it better. Actually, I do know what I should be doing and saying to express my appreciation but acting has never been my forte. Could I fake it? Probably. It’s just not my style.

Anyways,

That's as far as I got. Things with my parents got a little tense towards the end. Luckily I was only home for a couple of weeks before an opportunity came along.

I was pretty convinced, upon moving home, that maybe radio just wasn't for me anymore. I didn't feel the passion for it that I had once been love-drunk with. But sometimes, just sometimes, you accidentally realize that it never left...it was there all along...it was just lying dormant...silent and undetectable...waiting for the right time to come back bigger, better and stronger than ever.

And that's what happened to me.

I got a call from someone I used to work for 6 years ago in Raleigh, NC. She told me about a radio station in Charleston, SC that was looking for some "fresh blood." This station needed someone young with a bold personality and even bolder ideas. In Sacramento, I felt stripped of having free reign over my creative freedom. I was told exactly what to do and say. It wasn't fun. And if you're the type of person who lives and breathes and thrives off of the ability to express yourself then you can see how that scenario would be less than appealing.

So I expressed an interest in the job my former boss told me about.

I came down on Friday, September 24th (just 4 days after I started the post above) and interviewed for the job. The interview lasted two and a half hours. I felt a warmer reception in the two and a half hours I was in that building than in the two and a half years I lived in Sacramento. After I had met with the higher-ups I went back to my hotel and got a call with an official offer about 5:30 that same afternoon.

I said yes.

I spent the next week traveling between Charlotte and Charleston, trying to find a place to live. I wanted to start my new job as soon as possible. I found a house on Isle of Palms (my station is actually located in Mt. Pleasant) and I now live directly across the street from the beach. I walk out my front door, cross Palm Blvd, and have my toes in the sand.

And the job is great too...actually, it's better than great.

I feel like I (somehow) found the perfect place...for me, at least. I may have not changed latitudes but I did change coasts to find real changes in attitudes.