I just recently quit my job at the startup company I had been working in for almost five years. In startup terms, such long time might be a whole lifetime, but in my case, I grew liking it more and more as the years came, I had evolved from being just another engineer, to lead a team of seven great developers, with decision-making tasks and strategy planning for our technical infrastructure. It’s been such a great long teaching journey that I’m nothing but pleased with my own performance, learned lessons and skills and all I provided and was provided by the project.
Leaving a city like New York is not an easy task. You have it all there, you start making a life and suddenly, before you know it, you already have a bunch of ties to the place, people, leases, important dates, all kinds of shit. Seriously, all kinds of crazy ass shit start to fill up your baggage. You wake up everyday to get into the subway and commute surrounded by all of this people that are just like you: so similar yet so immensely different. No, leaving the city is not an easy task, it’s not something to take lightly. You know how people just say “my cycle has ended in this place” as an euphemism not to end in bad terms with anyone? Well, ending a cycle is indeed a reality, I got to a point where I felt like I needed to head into a different direction, take on new challenges and overall, peace out and hope the best to everyone, specially to myself.
This was me, on my last day at work, last Friday of June:
(Some) people seem to be anxious to know what I’m doing next, and my answer is, go mind your own fucking business. However, life is short and I would love to do any of the following:
Go back to Brazil again, now as a blue belt in Brazilian jiujitsu, and train non-stop in Rio, this time as a local. I happened to come to Rio last November (as a four stripe white belt) and it’d been a great experience, with the Connection Rio guys. I kind of regretted not staying any longer, as a lot of people use to do, maybe three months. You don’t get to do anything else but train and roll with black belts on a daily basis, eat the healthy good stuff that a wonderful country like Brazil has to offer, hang out with amazing people and chill the fuck out all day long.
Make a road trip through Central America and get to know all of those countries where I’ve never been to even when I’ve travelled extensively around them for the last few years. I would head to the southernmost tip of Mexico and then take a bus to backpack travel in the cities all the way to Panama. Beer all along, a lot of swimming, plenty of heaven.
Head to any Russian consulate so I can get an entry visa for their amazing country and travel to any chess club on any of its big cities. Or maybe Hungary (do I need a visa to visit it?). Stay on small hostels where all I could use is a few good chess books and a chessboard, absorbe myself into chess sounds like a dream come true.
Stop procrastinating and write all the good Perl stuff I’ve wanting to do on my own time. All of those good projects I always thought of and only had opportunity to try at work but not on a giving-back-to-the-community kind of way.
Decisions, decisions…
For the time being, I’m chilling with my people, friends and family in beautiful Mexico City. I’ve been doing so for the entire month of July and I couldn’t be more content. August will see my 28th birthday and as I approach thirty, I believe I need to continue moving forward.
This stupid world is a tiny place and our lives are short, I for one, will definitively try to take the bull by the horns.
Thanks for reading, more updates soon. Peace.