Possibilities

In a little over four months, I will no longer be living in Taiwan. July 11 is my official departure date; I'll be boarding a plane here in Kaohsiung at 9pm and, through the magic of airplanes and time zones, arriving back home just before midnight on the same day. And I've processed that, to the extent that I can this far in advance. What I haven't processed, however, is that I have no idea what I'm going back to--or even where.

Now, my first few weeks are covered: home with my wonderful family who I haven't seen in a year. I'll also be catching up with all the friends I haven't seen in ages, which will certainly include at least one trip to Seattle. But after that? A giant looming question mark with the terrifying label of "unemployed."

That's not the goal, of course. The goal is to get a job, preferably before I even board the plane at this end. But where? The more I think about it, the more I realize the possibilities are truly endless. Seattle? New York? London? Redding? Each of these places holds at least one very good reason I should move/move back there; each involves a unique process by which I should proceed; each of them is, in its own way, terrifying.

Really, the very prospect of choosing is terrifying.

Of course, the real choice will be wherever I get a job. But now, four months out, before it's really feasible to ask any company to wait for me, all I can do is stew in the terrifying state of uncertainty which is choice.