My Life Went South

26th of August 2023

I've been talking about moving out of Iowa for quite some time now. Well, it happened. Some may remember that I wanted to move to California. Unfortunately, that's not where I landed. I landed in South Carolina. South Carolina is just going to have to be apart of the journey to California. Moving here has gotten me out of Iowa, which is the only goal it accomplished for me. I've learned a lot of lessons since moving here: 1) Appreciate what you have. Things aren't always as bad as they seem. Think of all the support you have that surrounds you, and keep it with you wherever you go. That's the only way I'm surviving right now. I have nobody here, but I have plenty of friends around the country.

2) Trust your gut feeling. It never lies to you. If it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't.

3) Never move to a place without visiting first. There are so many surprises that awaited me in South Carolina. Expensive surprises. For example, you know you have to pay a property tax for a vehicle? AND you still have registration to pay for.

4) If people aren't getting back to you in a timely manner, they're not worth making a 1,000 mile move over. If someone or some company is asking you to make that big of a move, they should be able to help you out in every way possible. In my move, I asked via email where a good place to live is. I didn't get a response until a week later. By then, a place finally called, and I had already landed it.

5) Do lots of research. Call places if you have to. I should have called the South Carolina DMV. I probably could've gotten better answers.

6) The City of Des Moines will not help you at all. They will only hold you back. I'm not saying this because I didn't get my way. I wanted to rent out my house, but in order to do that, I needed a renter's certificate from the City. They scheduled me 2 weeks out for an inspection. By the time the inspection came, he tore everything apart saying I didn't have a building permit for the basement. Well, he's right. I didn't. The basement was finished when I moved into that house. He then went on about the termite damage. Again, taken care of before I moved in. Then he complained about the plumbing saying it was illegal. Guess what? That way when I moved in there. To put it nicely, FUCK YOU, CITY OF DES MOINES INSPECTOR WHOSE NAME I FORGOT!!

7) If a place out of state is offering you a job, don't accept unless they fly you out. No, this isn't to score a free trip. This is to see if you'll like the place that is wanting you to move there, live there, work there, and leave where you're living. It's not wrong to ask them to fly you out, but I do feel it's wrong to not be offered to fly out and be asked to make a drastic life change.

8) GPS doesn't always work. Trying to get to a post office, it took me to a car wash. My car didn't even need washing.

9) UPACK is something I shouldn't try again. They didn't even have my stuff there when I got to my apartment.

10) Make the potential employer spell out the offer. I feel like I didn't do that well enough with my new one.

So amongst these lessons, I have a year to spend in Greenville, South Carolina. I'm not ready to call it a fail yet. I've only been here close to 2 months. I'm watching California carefully though. Maybe being in South Carolina will be more attractive to potential employers since South Carolina is a bigger market. Who knows? I just know that California has to be where I land. It's the last place I found my smile.