Time for a Change

            In the end, it was actually an easy choice. Things simply had not been going well in the Louisville area for me. Truth be told, that had been the case for a few years.

            I had been laid off from work. The job market in Louisville was, in a word, abysmal. I had been through a string of bad relationships. This was simply not panning out. This blog, in which I wrote with such enthusiasm last spring and summer, fizzled out along with my feelings of self-worth. People asked me to write more, but I had a terrible time bringing myself to start typing. Each day I would fill out job applications online, send resumes, answer ads, make phone calls, and it all lead to a deafening wall of silence and apathy. The daily rejection of looking at my phone and seeing no calls, the logging in and seeing nothing but spam emails began to take its toll on the rest of my life. I felt my thoughts and ideas had no value, so I just stopped writing them down.

            This was no good. I had to do something. I had to start looking elsewhere. I had a near miss on a job in Las Vegas. That may not have changed my situation, but it gave me a bit of confidence that I had made it past a couple rounds of the selection process. It also gave me more incentive to look somewhere outside of the Ohio Valley for work. The question was, where should I look? I began to scour articles that ranked cities in America, and it wasn’t long before a pattern began to emerge. “Top 10 places to live,” “Top 10 growing job markets,” “Top 10 cities for the college educated,” list after list, Austin, Texas kept appearing.

            I decided the time was right. I began answering job postings in the Austin area, and before long, I had an interview. In a week I’d gotten more of a response than I had in months in Louisville. I booked a flight down to Austin and a hotel downtown. On a whim, I decided to stay a couple of days to get a bit of a feel for the place.

            Upon landing at the Austin airport, I immediately had a good feeling. Some places just have a vibe, and Austin’s seemed inviting to me. Despite the gray skies and rain falling that day I was comfortable. The attitudes of the locals may have had something to do with that. The area had been in a terrible drought for a year, and the rain was a big relief to them. They were also quick with advice about where I should go. I didn’t even have to ask (although I would have anyway), they were all quick to welcome me to town and give their thoughts on how I could have the best time possible while there. The woman at the rental car counter, the man standing next to me as we waited for our luggage to work its way down the conveyor belt, and the hotel desk clerk all gave recommendations. All three mentioned 6^th Street, of course, which I knew was the main drag of live music bars and clubs. I had done some scouting myself and had planned a trip to the University of Texas campus and to South Congress Street for a show at the Continental Club.

            I checked into my hotel, which was within a block or two of the impressive state capitol building, and right between campus and the 6^th Street complex. Perfect.

            I walked about a mile north to get a look at UT. As I expected, it was a beautiful campus. I strolled through the buildings, past the sports complexes and to the union. I headed across the street, grabbed a coffee from a non-megachain coffeehouse and sat down to people-watch. The weather had cleared up, people were out on the sidewalks and the area had that palpable feeling of energy that a college campus provides. I love that energy.

            After a couple of hours I made the walk over the hilly downtown area to 6^th Street.  This was a Monday night, so some of the clubs were closed and the ones that were open were far from busy, but it was still a good time. Even on a Monday, live music could be heard pouring out of the windows and from the rooftop beer gardens of the district.

            I had my interview in the morning, which went well enough that I spent a couple hours scouting potential apartments in the Round Rock suburb and talking to my stepfather on the phone about how well things were going. I could hear how happy he was for me in his voice, which was its own reward. Then, in the evening I had a real treat. I had a chance to spend the evening with my uncle, whom I had not seen in 25 years, and meet one of my cousins for the first time. Having a chance to hang out on South Congress Street having dinner and a few drinks with them was a real pleasure and the true highlight of the trip.

            The night capped off with a James McMurtry concert at the Continental Club. James was tremendous as always, and as I headed back to my hotel I reflected on the previous couple of days. I felt fortunate to be able to experience all I had seen in Austin. When my plane took off the next day, taking me back to Indiana, I had a strong feeling I would be back soon to stay. Thankfully, I was right. While the job I had interviewed for on that trip didn’t quite work out, another one did.

            I’ll be blogging more soon about the move and my early experiences down here in Texas.  Now that I’m getting settled in and feeling good, I feel like doing some writing again.