When we left our home in Utah and consequently the world we knew during our years of college, we looked optimistically toward our futures: Matt was going to get a job teaching by the next
school year, and I was going to get a full-time job doing something cool wherever he ended up getting a job. That was the plan.
Surprisingly, everything has pretty much gone according to plan, but it was the minor details that we had not anticipated.
We didn't know how miserable we would be for the next 8 months, trying to find jobs, questioning the value of our degrees, and having nothing more than minimum wage positions.
We didn't know that the one job Matt did get I would not be excited about to the point that the main reason I agreed for him to take it and for us to move out there was because I didn't think we would have any other opportunities.
But we also didn't know how blessed we would be after that 8 month trial of our patience.
Matt's job is in Vallejo. I had lived near Vallejo when I was young, so I knew all too well the reputation it had - ghetto. I was not excited to move there. We agreed that even though he would work in Vallejo, we wouldn't want to live there. So, I decided on a whim to see how close Martinez was to Vallejo.
Martinez was a city I had seen from the train when I would take the train to Sacramento when Matt and I were dating. I had never seen that city or that part of the bay before, and I immediately fell in love with it. There was water everywhere, but it was peaceful and had a small town feel, and I decided that it would be neat to live there when I grew up.
Turns out, Martinez is quite close to Vallejo, but across a toll bridge, so I looked to see what town was on the other side of the bridge - Benicia. I had never been to Benicia before, nor did I know anything about it, except I remembered that when I was little my mom would always talk about the Benicia Bridge. I found out, however, that Benicia was actually a really safe town, even though it was right next to Vallejo, and also affordable since it was 2 toll bridges away from San Francisco. So I looked up a bunch of craigslist ads, and called Matt a bunch of times when he was out there looking, and bam, now we live here.
It's an awesome place, and seriously, everyone we've met here has been nice.
The people at church have been super supportive, they've helped us move, invited us over for dinner, and even helped get me a job 2 weeks after we moved there - I am now working as a receptionist at a dental office! Matt got his friend a job at the school he's teaching at, we live within an hour and a half of both our families, and 45 minutes away from San Francisco. Not to mention, the nice Bay Area weather helps us stay cool during the summer when we don't have A/C.
And THIS is something I remember seeing from the train - I called it a "rusty trailer on a stick" because I had no idea what it was (still don't, actually).
But it made me think, was the town I fell in love with really Martinez, or was it Benicia?
Life has been really good to us recently, and we are so blessed. Regardless of what ends up happening in the future, I've decided I'm going to make the most out of my experience here. I'm going to keep writing my story, keep developing who I am, take in the things that Benicia can teach me and make them a part of myself.
This is a view that captures what "home" is to me right now.
Here's to a new chapter in my story!
