Over the last few weeks, I had to decide whether or not pursue contract opportunities outside of Arizona. While I’ve always been one to embrace change, I was falling into a happy rhythm of how my life in the desert was unfolding. I struggled with the idea of moving while maintaining focus on applying for three different startup pitch competitions and balancing a new found social life. My motto has always been work hard, play harder. With the demands of a startup, the play part of life has diminished to practically nothing. Meeting all of the application deadlines, preparing executive summaries, and slide decks pretty much had me deserting social functions to work on these deliverables until midnight or 1 am nearly every day. This is not a complaint because with all this hard work led to solid messaging and direction for the company, plus I love what I’m doing!

When I was weighing my options, calculating my finances, and assessing how I felt about moving, I was a complete mess! Working on anything related to Hand Things Down was easy because I knew exactly what I needed to do and when it needed to be done. Deciding on whether or not I was ready to leave the kids behind and not seeing certain things develop naturally made me sad. I was settling into the idea of not moving until after Jelli graduated, then I realized I’ve got to pick up a contract so I can provide her with a really cool senior year. Who would I talk to about making this decision? Old friends I haven’t talked to in forever? Can I burden new friends with helping me weigh out whether or not I should make a drastic change in my life? An ex-boyfriend who knows me? In the end, I ended up withdrawing into myself to weigh the pros and cons.

I literally felt like my world was turning upside down and I needed to make a move because the indecision was killing me! I don’t function well in a holding pattern, I would rather know a direction so I can put the pieces in place to make something happen or if the situation calls for it, walk away.

In the end, I chose to pick up a 9 month contract in California. I’ve literally moved every few months for some sort of opportunity and the move has always made be grow as a person and an entrepreneur. While the external circumstances were the same in the sense that it was unforeseen and so much needed to happen in a short span of time, this time just felt more difficult emotionally.