my story.

pin.

a little while ago, i had an interview of sorts with the big boss.  we've known each other for years, but he asked me to introduce myself - maybe to break the ice, but probably because we only know each other in the small-talk-around-the-water-cooler kind of way.  and that only explains who i am that very minute.

i think the blog world is kind of the same thing.  when we jump on a blog, find one we like and start to follow, we pick up mid-story.  if we're really that invested, we read a few posts back, but it's still just a snippet of who we are. a flash on the view master of our lives, if you will.

i talk to my blog like y'all know what and who and when i'm talking about.  but maybe you don't...

so, here's my story. 

the one i tell when people ask where i'm from and how i got here.

the extended version, of course.

i was born and raised in san diego, lived there until i left for school in idaho.

i was 17 for all but a few weeks of my first fall semester.

i'd never been further north than salt lake when my dad drove me to idaho.  i remember seeing a destination sign and thinking, "oh, kaysville... i've heard of this place...."

he took me grocery shopping, gave me $50 and drove home. 

i went to ricks college with my best friend holly because i didn't have any plans to go anywhere else. it was a two year school, but somewhere in between, they announced it would become a four year university.  i went  home to san diego for a year and a half while the school did its thing and developed its programs.

i have an associates degree from ricks college and a bachelor's degree from byu-idaho. 

i never planned on living in utah after graduation.  throughout my entire college life, my mom begged me to transfer to a utah school and "find some utah med student and be a doctor's wife"... but i didn't want to.

 i worked for a law firm when i was home in san diego between my sophomore and junior year, and worked for a local lawyer in rexburg when i went back to school.  even though i studied public relations, i never thought i'd use it.  i did it because it came easy to me. a communications degree was almost entirely make believe - no solving for x... no right answers.  i wrote 17 pages about tuna for a class once - and i've never tasted even an ounce of tuna in my life!  my plan was to go home, earn a cert to become a paralegal, and move to vegas to live among the mormons in the heat of the desert.

three weeks before graduation, i was sitting in a saturday night church meeting {righteous, right?} thinking to myself, maybe las vegas isn't the right choice.  maybe i should go to salt lake. now, i lived in a house with te girls. we were going to be friends for life, but we had all different plans after graduation... and that made us all a little anxious. just as i shook the thoughts from swirling in my head, my roommate leaned in and whispered, "i can't believe that in three weeks i won't see you 18 hours a day. i don't know what i'm going to do."  she was planning on moving to utah... but the exacts weren't set. i *think* salt lake was her #1 preference, but didn't have anyone to move in with, so she settled for provo with a friend. 

"that's weird," i said, "because i was just thinking about moving to salt lake."  we decided that night that if plans moved forward smoothly, we'd do it.  if it proved to be an uphill battle, we'd both go back to plan a and keep on keeping on.

four weeks later, i was in salt lake, crashing on an air mattress in my best friend's parents' basement.  interviewing + resuming by day, apartment hunting by night.  i got a job at a real estate appraisal firm - nothing spectacular, but it was the first thing i found to generate income.  the house was as perfect as could be - down the street from my dad's brother mark + his two kids.  what a dream that was.  it was the most charming house in all of salt lake - i'm sure of it - and my uncle took such good care of us. he was the house male, taking care of all the things two girls don't know how to take care of and i was the "help hali do her hair for school pictures" female so necessary for the single dad with a growing tween girl. 

aside from uncle mark, we didn't like it.  we were fidgety and unsettled for the first 6 months.  we never had trouble making friends in college... popular, if we're being honest... but we just couldn't stick in slc.  i felt lost in a sea of 10,000 mormons at church.  easily forgettable to all the other people who had already made their friends.  

i sat at my job, day after day, doing nothing mostly, until one day - i noticed the clock strike 3 p.m. when someone spoke out loud for the first time. 7 HOURS IN THE OFFICE AND NO ONE SPOKE A WORD. i'm a professional communicator and i was b-o-r-e-d as could be. so i set out to find a new job. but not a career.  i wasn't sure i wanted to stay in slc forever, so i didn't want to settle in for good. i just wanted another office slave job at a place where people talked to each other. at least.

i applied for an admin job at an engineering firm. i couldn't tell you what an engineer was, but i made it past the first round of interviews.

and that's when things started to fall apart.

i thought i had time on my side... i already had a job so there was no urgency to make a decision.

but right then, i reconsidered my las vegas plans... and even some san diego plans.

i interviewed a few more times with the engineers.  AND THEN the vice president said, "is there anything you studied at school that you'd be interested in persuing, long term?"

i didn't know what she meant, but with a few prompts, she said, "because we're trying to grow our public involvement group.  you won't have any idea what that is, but trust me, you'll like it."

she knew me for 20 minutes and i knew her for 20 minutes, but she was asking me to trust her with my career path and fate of my future.

so i cried.

i went to my car and cried.

and i don't think i stopped crying... between phone conversations with my parents... until they called me back for the 3294735th interview and to meet the entire team of engineers.

the appointment was set for 4 p.m., but at 4:10, i was still crying in my car, on the phone with my dad, when the h.r. girl called and asked if i was planning on making my interview.

between sniffs, i told her i was in the parking lot and i'd be up in a second.

{who in the WORLD would a mess like me?}

red eyes, sniffly nose, runny mascara + all, i interviewed again. 

and they liked me!

i took a week off between jobs to vacation in north carolina with andi.

she was a design coordinator for a new anthropologie there and i was hired on as a temp employee for the week for the ultimate craft session, directed by a team of gay men from corporate.

all in the name of a one time employee discount. 

i started work six weeks ago last monday. SIX YEARS!

within six weeks, i put money down on a house next door to my bff holly.

i didn't know what i was doing - still don't, shhhh... don't tell.

i was so overwhelmed with the decision making involved in picking a wood type + finish on the railing along my stairwell, i flew my mom out to slc to join me in the almighty color appointment.

my real life friends know that i love my job more than anyone.

i can't help but think about the vp who asked me to trust her - or wonder what she saw in me in those few frantic, teary eyed interviews - that made her think i was at ALL emotionally capable of a job like mine. 

the story could continue.... but most of it's documented in the last 1,556 blog posts.

it's all yours to dissect.

i feel like i've recited all or parts of this story a thousand times before.  maybe to you!
we all have a story.  that's mine. what's yours?