Written By: K
Age Written: 34. Age Writing to: 24. Location: San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
Dear K,
You’re 24. You graduated college a couple years prior and have stable, interesting work. But your apartment is crappy and you’re not paid well. You’ve seen New York - check! - but don’t want to live there. You apply to the local orchestra, with whom you’ve volunteered—they reject you, say you’re overqualified, and that you’ll be off to greener pastures. You cry, and begin to think about leaving South Carolina (they were right), and apply to opera jobs in Austin (rejected) and at least a few other random locations around the country.
Then, you interview with a company in Berkeley, take another interview, and another. You’re hired. But! You’d never considered what it might be like to live in the Bay Area. You didn’t know anyone who’d spent time in San Francisco. You google “San Francisco.” Oh, that’s where the bridge is! You take the leap, your father drives from Colorado to South Carolina, and drives with you all the way to Berkeley.
You accept help from anyone and everyone who offers it. Your boss’s mom wants to house you for five months? You accept! The board member’s neighbor is traveling for a month and lends you her home? You accept! Your parents want to take care of your cat for three months? You accept! You live off the charity of others on and off for a year–living in five different places over the year–before settling in Oakland.
You increasingly seek more stable work, get promoted, get promoted again. Your boyfriend moves from Boston to SF, and you move in together. Your position becomes stable enough and you are able to save aggressively and prepare for yet another life transition - leaving the workforce and going back to school! In the meantime, you develop uncountably many skills, small to large, that will inevitably help you in the future.
At this point now, ten years to the date of moving to the Bay, you’ve seen the extreme lows and highs of how people in the world live, from a material standpoint, and have accepted your place in this spectrum and are confident in your ability to adapt as needed. You’ve learned that people ultimately have the same issues, goals, and loves. We all want physical and emotional safety, to feel valued, to feel connected to others.
My lesson to you is to accept help whenever it’s given. A friend’s text or a partner’s hug–these help you in the day-to-day changes more than you know. Accept the gift of being able to live a rich private world while also engaging with the public in a meaningful way. Accept the gift that you live among natural and man-made beauty. Accept the gift of care and love from your partner, the gift of wisdom from mentors in your professional life, the gift of friendship from old and new friends. Accept the gift of change.
With love,
K
