I had to help out with the office move for my company the weekend in San Francisco. In the time that I was there, I was thinking about how great San Francisco is. I love my friends and family here, but there are times I wonder about the sacrifice Jaz had to make to come here. Leaving all of her family and friends to move to Illinois with me. At the time our deciding factor was because I had an established job where I was and she had just graduated college. Of course it made the decision “easier” because logically it just made sense, and it would even make MORE sense now that we both have established careers. But when I was in San Francisco this weekend, it felt like a place we could call home too. If we were to move there, my friends and family would be sad and Jaz’s family and friends would be happy, just the opposite of what they were 5 years ago. That is one of the difficulties of having a spouse’s family in another state. It’s either one family or the other, or neither. Not everyone is completely happy. This is all just me thinking about it in my head and most likely, this will all pass when I get home and get to see my friends and family again. But for a weekend I felt how it would be like if I lived and worked in San Francisco. Although it was on the company dollar it still felt like it was somewhere we could belong.
I’ll be honest, the massive amount of asians that are there did make me feel that way. Since I never really had that growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, it is just shocking and welcoming to see whenever I go there. I think it’s just a cultural thing that I don’t want to lose. I can see some of that slip away from me even now, and I want to make sure my kids (no announcement) can still have a sense of Filipino pride. When I think about my parents and how they just up and decided to move to the USA I am truly inspired and humbled. Here are people who had no real idea of America but knew that they wanted to come here and be successful and raise a family. The courage and the drive it took for them to get that done is something that I do not know if I have in me. This is the pride that I am talking about. Maybe I don’t have the need to move to another country, but I have the confidence in myself to push limits (marathon/philanthropy) and try to inspire others to push themselves. I think their history is what made me who I am today.
Whoa, I went on a huge tangent there. Sorry sometimes those thoughts just flow and I need to just get it all out before it is gone. So I think it’s that sense of community that I feel in San Francisco that really makes it so appealing. Now, it may be unfair to compare it to where I currently live in the suburbs. There is a good portion of culture there, just not my culture. I have been trying to open myself up to it as well, but there are times when you just got it bring it home to what you are used to. I am not sure how it would work if we were to try and move to San Francisco, but it’s just a nice possibility to have in our back pocket it we really need it.