Jess
Please, call me Jess. Only my mom calls me Jessica, and that’s usually when I’m in trouble.
On my 24th birthday, my boyfriend of two years, Derek, and I moved from Los Angeles, CA, to San Francisco, CA, to start together the newest chapter in our lives.
For me, these chapters are very obviously bounded by places: Childhood was in Indianapolis, Adolescence in a little town outside it, College in New York, Young Adulthood in Los Angeles and now… whatever this is… takes place in San Francisco. Each place has been completely different from the last and life has changed along with each move, which in turn has changed me. Each place has its own little story arc – the excitement of moving, the slow progression into comfort, the turning point where comfort becomes too comfortable… and then the excitement of moving again.
The people have changed. My personality has changed. My body has changed. The one constant thread throughout all of this – since really pretty much everything else has changed at one point or another – is that I’ve always been, at my heart, a writer.
I have stories to tell.
Telling these stories is not always easy, though. Sometimes the last thing I want to do is bare my freshest wounds to the world. And sometimes the things that make me happy are too precious to share. Lianhua falls by the wayside and for some reason I can’t seem to pick it up.
But, slowly, I’m convincing myself that these stories have to be told. I have to bring pen to paper (er… fingers to keyboard?) and let everything out into the open (well, almost everything… some things I still have to keep all to myself). I have to decompress, vent, rant, rave, shout to the world… Or else I might explode.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen anytime soon.
What You May Need to Know Going into This
I am a front-end web designer for a startup company in San Francisco. The title is deceiving, though. I’m more like a designer / front-end developer / virtual firefighter / CSS/HTML guru / office mascot wrangler / WordPress warrior / apex predator. I wear many hats. One has chinchilla ears.
That’s why I gave up a cushy job in Los Angeles – the one where I didn’t necessarily have to be challenged. I took an astronomical risk. And I’m ecstatic that I did. I miss my friends and my social support circle but *midwestern mom voice* in this day and age with those intarwebs and bookfaces and mytubes and youspaces… … I know I can get ahold of them (and vice-versa) whenever necessary. It’s hard, but it could be much worse.
I’ve been dealing with anxiety and depression for years. Recently I was on antidepressants/anti-anxiety meds for about a year, and decided to go off them in April 2010 (right before the move — smart, Jess! >___<). I still have some “emergency backup” pills in case I need them, but so far I’m doing pretty well. It helps that my quality of life has increased quite a bit lately.
Oh, and I have the most adorable chinchilla. His name is Sammie, he’s all black and he’s three years old. *nod nod*