Goodbye Mississippi.

(Originally published Sunday, February 24, 2013)

I’ve been telling myself that I would be more diligent about keeping a blog, but unfortunately for me my life isn’t all that exciting to publish, well that and I’m honestly just not that great at finding interesting things to write about on a fairly consistent basis. My good friend Sergio has a blog that would honestly put my stuff to shame. He knows how to articulate and convey certain topics not only in a way that will keep you interested, but will also make you laugh in the process. I, on the other hand am only funny in person, or via text, depending on who you talk to. But anyway, I get off topic. I have ADHD so bear with me.

So, I’ve moved to DC. Yep. It’s absolutely crazy how all of this came about. I guess it all really started a little before I graduated college in December of 2011. Me and my two good friends, Em J and Morgan, had talked about how cool it would be to get out of Mississippi. For many reasons, the biggest being the lack of exciting things to do in Jackson. I mean we were literally going to the same bar every Thursday night for ladies, seeing the same people, etc…It just got old. Then Em J and her momma went to Nashville randomly and she came back telling us how awesome it was. My curiosity was definitely piqued at this point. Then, as luck would have it, my birthday was right around the corner and I just so happen to stumble on the Music City Bowl’s website, and low and behold, Mississippi State was playing in it that year. Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with the SEC, let me break it down for you like this. Besides BCS games, there are a number of other postseason invitationals. Generally, two conferences will agree to send teams of a particular standing to a game beforehand. That year, Mississippi State (SEC) and Wake Forest (ACC) were picked to play in Nashville at LP Field (that’s where the Titans play if you know nothing about football, whatsoever). Anywho, they were playing on my birthday (Dec 30). It was like a sign that we had to go. I mean, c’mon, football on my birthday? I was beyond stoked. The last time I had been to Nashville was when my Dad, Marg, and I went on a family vacation to Opryland. Yeah it had been that long. Opryland is now closed unfortunately, but I do remember it was a fun time. It was kind of like a country version of Six Flags. So off we went. It was honestly one of those trips that was life changing. I know it was for Em J, because six months later she found herself a new job and moved up there. For me, it was a trip that made me realize how big the world really is and why am I wasting my time in Mississippi? Every weekend in Nashville, there is always something cool to do. I remember when Em J first moved up there, she somehow scored boxed seats to a Miranda Lambert concert, whom we both worship. She called me that afternoon to tell me about the free tix and I was on the road to Nashville the next day to go to the concert that night. I love Nashville. In fact, I started to apply for jobs up there, but never heard anything back. I also tried to apply for jobs in bigger cities. I went to Dallas and ATL for interviews but didn’t get either job. After job searching for six months after graduation, I managed to secure a commission furniture sales position in Jackson.
About three months into the job, I started to really dislike my job. Not just the work, but the type of person I had become. Working in commission sales, I felt like I had to compromise who I was, I felt like a money hungry slave. I couldn’t use my interior design skills, because all the people really wanted was how much of a deal I could get them. To make matters worse, I couldn’t trust my coworkers because they were sneaky and would steal a $500 sale right out from under me. It was very cut throat. Don’t get me wrong, the money was great, but I was miserable. I woke up every morning dreading going to work.

Through out all of this, I would see Em J post about all these cool things she was doing every weekend in Nashville. The girl was having the time of her life. I wanted that. Now, before I hadn’t really thought through about what I wanted from a city. Or rather, how I wanted that city to be. My ideal city is something that has plenty of sport teams, promote being health conscious, have plenty of outdoor water activities because I love to kayak, great public transportation because I would love to be able to walk everywhere I go, it must be a “young city”, and most importantly it must have plenty of artists coming to play concerts year round.

My good friend and I were talking about all of this and he was like, “Anna, you should move to DC.” My first response was something along the lines of “Um, hell no. I can’t deal with Yankees.” He laughed and then began naming off all of the different reasons why I should look into it and that nobody actually grew up in DC, that is was in fact a big melting pot. All of the aforementioned reasons that I just named off were included. Not gonna lie to you, I was still very hesitant. He said, “Just get you some interviews set up, fly up there, and just see if you don’t fall in love with it. At least then you can mark it off you’re list of places you’ve never been.”

Now over the years, I’ve learned something about myself. A lot of times people know me better than I know myself, and if they say I’m going to like something, ninety percent of the time I do like it. Why is that? It’s still a mystery to me. Anyway, so with that mindset, I decided what the hell. I have nothing to lose. Plus, I’ve never been to DC and I figured every American needs to visit our nation’s capital at least once.

Now let’s fast forward three weeks. I found myself a little job in the heart of Georgetown, I’m currently living with Asian roommates (Ping and Ting, no relation) in their living room. Yes, you read right, in the living room. It is very spacious and I have plenty of room to do whatever I want, dance around to some T. Swift, yoga, P90x, poker, ha who am I kidding, I wouldn’t do those last three things. But you get the idea. I drove my car all the way up from MS in two days with all of my clothes, shoes, and I don’t know what other stuff, but it filled up my entire car. So here I am. I gotta say I never thought I would miss my Margaret doing her little scare tactics on me at all until the other night. Now for those of you who know me really well, I am very easy to scare. I also have a hard time falling asleep without some sort of white noise in the background. So the first night I was here, I turned on my White Noise app right before I went to bed. My friends at home get the biggest kick out of this because they know where to find me, just simply follow the noise of the app and I’m usually right there. Anyway, Ping heard this noise. I had on my eye mask so I was about to fall asleep when I had this eerie feeling that someone was looking over me. I know I’m about to be judged for saying this but I have always been terrified of the movie “The Grudge”. Well, I should have thought about that before I moved in with two Asians. Anyway, I took my eye mask off and looked up and saw this Asian girl with a flashlight up to her face and I screamed “OH MY GOD GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME! I WANT MY MOMMA!” She then screamed something in Chinese, and ran out the door. Scariest thing of my life!

After I pulled myself together and realized what happened (P-Ting was wondering what the noise was) I decided to go find her. Poor little Ting Ting had peed her pants and was in a fetal position in the corner of the hallway. I felt terrible! After I explained to her what happened and why I was so scared she finally got up, gave me a hug, went to her room and went to bed. When I laid my head down on my pillow, I thought to myself “Way to make a good first impression Anna, you haven’t even been here 12 hours and you’re already scaring yourself and your roommates.” Poor little Ting Ting.