On Moving to the Middle of Nowhere

My journey to this island has been interesting.  I was recruited by a friend of mine through California Youth & Government.  I remember messaging her saying I wanted to come visit and asking how that was possible. She told me, but she also told me I could come work on the island.  I laughed at that idea.  I had my own business in Washington, D.C. that was thriving, and while going to live on a tropical island far away from the cares of the world sounded wonderful, it wasn’t realistic.

The more I saw of her life via photos on the island, the more I entertained the idea of actually moving here.  It wasn’t until late July of 2018 that I listen to my gut and told her I wanted to apply for whatever position at which she thinks I would excel.  

I am not a religious man.  In fact, I really don’t like organized religion.  But, and I’m sorry for the lazy writing, but I truly do feel my life has been blessed.  I have been at the right place at the right time too many times in my life to make it just coincidence.  Yes, there is a fair amount of privilege in that sentence.  Of that I am well aware.  However, ever decision that has led me to be here has been because I made the right choice with the decision before that, and before that, and before that. I’m not saying there is a God or a god that has intervened in my life, but I fully believe the universe was telling me to seize this opportunity, as it had in the past with other choices.

See, in May of 2018, after returning from Munich and Rome, where my grandmother unfortunately broke her hip and we had to return via air ambulance, I take a few steps in to my room and the carpet squishes under my foot. I’m still unsure what exactly happened in my three weeks away, but that room was uninhabitable.  Fortunately, I could sleep in the second bedroom in my apartment.  That is, until one fateful night in July when the downspout along the side of my house broke and the water drained right in to the window well of the room where I was sleeping.

After that night, I moved in to a hotel for a few weeks.  While there, I realized that I needed a change in living quarters.  My apartment was and is a fantastic gem in one of DC’s most iconic and historic neighborhoods, but I knew the universe was telling me to find something else.  And the more I took stalk of my life, the more I realized that I really did want to move to an island 7,000 miles away from the life I had built and with which I had come to be familiar. 

I interviewed with my friend who was on island, and two women who would, as I found out today in my training, would be my direct supervisor and her boss. The interview was short and I felt confident.  Later my friend told me they had made up their mind to hire me after the first question. 

There were several organizational changes going on on Island so I knew it would be a little while before I got here.  I didn’t think it would take almost five months, but it was out of my hands. 

Eventually I would make my way to Texas for a company orientation, physical and to have some blood drawn.  After about 36 hours in Texas, I was on my way to an Island in the middle of the south pacific.  I knew it was an adventure I that would change me.  I am still not sure how it will, but every time I’ve done something like this, I have come back a humbler, more appreciative, and more confident person.

The folks I’ve met here have been so welcoming.  My team threw a welcome barbeque the evening I arrived (I arrived with another person who is working in my department) to introduce themselves to us. My direct supervisor met us at the airport and spent the afternoon showing us around the island.  She also checked on both of our rooms to make sure they were in the proper habitable conditions (which if she hadn’t done, may not have been the case).  

I think the reason I am not overwhelmed by loneliness or a sense of the sheer change I have just made is because I feel supported.  When I moved to Nice for a summer in high school, I was shipped off to France without knowing a single person on the continent.  When I moved to Paris, I knew a few more people in Europe, but was still incredibly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the city, of the fact I wouldn’t be coming home for months.  But not moving here.  I have a routine, I have housing, I have a steady source of food (that I don’t have to cook myself).  I can start enjoying this gift I have been given from day one.  I don’t need to waste my time stressing.

I have high hopes for my time on the island.