Moving to San Francisco (Part 3): Defining Home
It’s been more than a month since I’ve been in San Francisco, though it doesn’t really feel like it’s been that long. Feels like… just 2 weeks?
Well, I’ve been keeping myself busy for most days, and especially after we have finally secured our new flat, I was going shopping for different furniture and home equipment almost every day.
You just can’t believe how many things you need to make a home complete. It can be something as small and simple as nails and hooks for hanging pictures on the wall to items like a new bed, new cabinets for the toilet, shelves for the wardrobe and etc. And of course, we went to Ikea for many of those items, and after, set up the furniture all by ourselves at home.
But the real crazy part isn’t the endless shopping list that goes on and on, but the unpacking when our shipment finally arrived. We have 77 items and boxes to open, set up, clean and sort out. That took us about two whole days of non-stop action to put most of the things in place.
You may think that moving is such a glamorous thing, but in reality, it’s so, so overrated. The amount of effort needed is just insane.
Getting a new house? Yay. The efforts taken to actually find one? The house hunting trips you have to take? The wait for the administrative side to be processed? Nay.
And then when you FINALLY got the keys, you still need to CLEAN the house. Even though this flat we got is newly furnished, there are actually tons of dust from the renovation. And I being the OCD cleanliness freak just had to clean every single corner of the flat, even the tiniest spaces.
But I guess you can say that the satisfaction of getting everything done the way you wanted them to be is pretty worth it. Cinderella started off scrubbing floors too, you know. Lol.
So, this is the mess we had to deal with 2 days before Christmas. Our shipment from Hongkong was supposed to come on the 18th, but got delayed till 22nd December, so we had to rush everything to make sure that we could have our holiday in peace.
And yes, we didn’t go away for Christmas, which was what most people did. We thought that being home would be nice enough a treat, as compared to traveling to the mountains for some snow activities.
It was funny actually. We went running around the city on Christmas Day and most of the streets were empty, and the houses along them were empty too. Most people were out of town that weekend.
After putting in so much effort into this new flat, I’m starting to feel a deeper connection to the city. Through all the trips I’d taken around it for the random errands day in day out, I got to see and experience the city, not just as a passing stranger, but as its resident.
And this move is kinda like the first time I’m given such responsibility and ownership over my life too. The decision to come to San Francisco is a shared one between Jason and me. He wouldn’t have accepted the job offer if I wasn’t agreeable to come here with him.
When we finally came to SF and had to look for a new home, I played a part in picking the apartment too. Jason refused to make the decision without my consideration and approval. So we chose this apartment at this location together. We chose the furniture together. We set everything up together.
It’s quite a nice feeling actually, to know that I’m not doing all these all by myself. The stress of it all would have been so terrible. And I know Jason feels the same too. We are so glad to have each other’s support.
In fact, I have gotten so used to living with Jason, whenever he has to get out of town for work for a few days, life’d feel a little off. I would feel that the bed is too big. The house would be too quiet. Cooking for one just isn’t as enjoyable as cooking for two, let alone eating.
I hate to imagine how life would be like when I have to go back to Singapore in February. It’s gonna be our longest period of being apart I think. And how long I’ll have stay in Singapore depends on how fast the visa application goes. We are crossing fingers on that.
And even though I will be living in Singapore while Jason’s in SF, he would be visiting Asia for work about once a month, so there’s a good chance I would be flying to China or Hongkong to meet up with him. We do hope to see each other as much as possible.
Home is what you make of it.
For now, I’m kind of caught in a limbo. Like my life is split into different parts and put at different places, and I am simply shuffling between them— Singapore, Hongkong and San Francisco. Well, that’s what I signed up for, I guess.
Actually, there have been people asking me how I’ve made it to the U.S. It seems like there are a lot of Singaporeans who want to leave Singapore and live in another country. But I’ll always put a disclaimer out there that life abroad may not as glamorous as it seems.
Though, you do get to start over, and actually build the life you have always wanted — the home away from home that holds a brighter and happier future.
As for me, the journey to getting there still requires a few more steps, and I hope that I will be able to fulfil all of them in 2016.
TBC…