I'm restless.

I'm restless in three distinct areas of my life. Fortunately, I have three distinct blogs, each covering (more or less) one of those three aspects. So I'm making three entries at (roughly) the same time.

I'm restless in my life, and I'm not sure exactly the source of that restlessness. It could be the stagnation in my romantic life, it could be the indifference I feel about my current job. Or, it could be that I've been here (in California) for almost eight years. That's longer than I was in Denver, and the longest I've stayed at one address since I left home after high school to live in the dorms at OU.

I used to use a variety of excuses to convince myself that I needed to stay here. I was responsible for my hobby club's website, but I've passed that along to someone new, now. I have friends that I'm close to, but some of them have already moved to further reaches of the bay area, cutting down on how often I see them. And some of them are contemplating a move of their own, almost certainly out-of-state. Yesterday, while sitting with some people, I had one of the strongest senses of yearning and melancholy for Denver I've had since I first moved here. For a few seconds, I was desperate to be back. Something someone had said, triggered a memory. It was a memory of walking off a good Thanksgiving meal with some friends, up in the mountain town of Evergreen. I had a full beard then, and I remember the feeling of my breath causing ice build-up in the beard. That made me think of just how generally crisp the air in Denver feels in the fall, before it gets seriously cold for the winter. I was surprised, really, to feel such an aching.

That isn't to say that I'm planning, or evening idly considering, a return to Denver. I don't know for certain that I really want to leave Silicon Valley. Almost anywhere else I go is going to have fewer jobs in my field to offer. I can make sure I go somewhere that has enough of a job market that I have a good chance of finding employment, but none of them will be like it is here. What's more, I really felt like, when I left Denver, that I was uprooting myself. I'd been there long-enough to feel like I had some roots starting to grow. Moving out here un-did all of that. Wouldn't moving now undo the same progress I've made out here?

The worst part is the uncertainty. I don't know with any great precision what it is that I'm looking for, which makes it fairly hard to decide where I should be looking for it. Some things are clearer than others: I want to find a partner and settle down. Some things aren't: I want to be in a different job, but I don't have anything specific in mind.

I've mused in the past about moving overseas, even if only for a few years. I wonder if it isn't just a matter of the lingering furtiveness, with the impulses taken to a greater extreme than just re-eyeing Denver, or thinking about the east coast. I really don't know where this sense of agitation is going to take me. And that only makes me all the more restless.