Georgia Peaches

Hey everyone!  If you saw my post on Instagram or are my friend on Facebook than you saw my big announcement yesterday.  At the end of the summer, I will be packing up my home in Upstate New York and starting a new adventure.  I'm trading in New York apples for Georgia peaches and moving to Atlanta, Georgia to start a new job that I officially accepted and announced this week.

You might be thinking, "Katelyn, are you insane?  I don't know a ton about your job but you do post all the time about how you love it and you get to travel to exciting places like Romania, Turkey, Spain, China and cool places in the U.S. like Vegas!"  And this is SO true, which is what makes this decision all the more bittersweet.

Let me first explain that although it is a new role, new team, new business, new location, it is all still within the same company (which, the flexibility in career is one of the pros of working for a large company.)  Although I am going to miss SO many perks about my old job, my coworkers, industry, etc. I am hoping to take some of the pros of that job with me, such as the travel (!), and also experience some new things.  I always want to be learning in a job, continually challenged, and never comfortable.  And I will say, that when you are in a job you love, it doesn't feel like work, and when it is fun, you don't mind working hard at it, and without even realizing it, you'll be successful and have people calling you about new opportunities (which is sort of what happened in this case.)

Another major thing that is coming along with this job change is the location where I live.

I have been living in Albany, New York for more than 6 years now.  I have been in Upstate New York for 10 years if you include my time at Syracuse.  Being 27 years old, that is essentially half of my cognitive life.  It is the entirety of my truely adult life.  The other 17 years of my life were spent a few hours away in Rhode Island.  I have spent my entire life living within a distance that covers 5 hours by car.  And while that might be enough for some people, I have a curious personality and a bad case of wanderlust that has caused me to want to see and explore pretty much everywhere I have never been!

Moving to Atlanta, and to the South, will be a big challenge for me.  I will be a plane ride away from my family for the first time in my life.  I will need to start over building a network of friends.  Finding my "community" of people.  I will need to find new doctors, a new person to cut my hair, new favorite grocery stores, restaurants, and running paths.  I'm really nervous about a lot of it (I've been told by my love, Kimmy, to not use the word "scared" anymore when talking about the move) but the excitement overrides the nerves.  

I am trying really hard to not think about the sad part of the move.  About the things, places, and more importantly, the people that I cannot take with me to Atlanta.  It's not even something I want to write about here because I can feel myself getting emotional already.  However, what gets me through is knowing that many of my friendships I will not be leaving behind.  At least thats not how I am going to think of it.  My family has expanded so much through the years that I've been in Albany and although there are many that I won't be able to see on a regular basis, family is forever.  Albany is no longer just a place I have lived, but it is a home to me.  Although I am moving, I will not be gone for good.

I'm excited for what is to come and excited to blog through the journey and process!  Thanks for being a part of my life and cheers to Georgia peaches!