Learning To Live For Me (A Short Story)

This is a pretty long story, but I hope you’ll stick around until the end.

I kind of broke down shortly after deciding to change my entire life and move to Florida. Nobody really talks about what happens after you make a decision that big.

I’m not sure if everyone goes through it, but for me, it felt like a death, a letting go of my old self so I could create a new one.

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A Short Story

From Dallas to Destin: A Leap of Faith

If you’ve read any of my other content or my About page, you might already know that I quit my 9-to-5 job and moved from Dallas, TX, to Destin, Florida.

It was a spur-of-the-moment, split-second decision, my fiancé and I just dropped everything and made the move.

My mom and her husband had moved there the year before, and when I went to visit, I realized I couldn’t be so far away.

I knew they’d need someone nearby to help out from time to time, and, as it turned out, I was right. We made the move, and since then, we’ve been there for them whenever they needed us.

From a Cancelled Trip to a Life-Changing Decision

I honestly have no idea what we were thinking. It all started because a mother-daughter trip was canceled, my mom was sick and couldn’t travel.

So instead of going on that trip, my fiancé and I decided to visit her at my parents’ house in Florida. We packed up and drove 11 hours there, with our cat Sushi in with us.

Sushi was in and out of her carrier the whole trip, such a curious little thing. We let her out at a rest stop to stretch her legs and go potty.

It was her longest car ride yet, she’d only been in the car for about six hours before, but she handled the 11-hour drive way better than I expected. We got there late and settled in for what turned into a much-needed getaway.

We enjoyed a nice, long vacation at their beautiful house on the bay. We helped out around the house, doing whatever we could to lighten the load.

My parents used to ask us all the time, “So… when are you moving to Florida?”

They asked before we’d even decided we were moving.

It had always been their dream to have the whole family nearby one day. For us, though, it was always just a maybe…until everything shifted.

We could tell they needed our help, and that’s when the idea finally clicked: Maybe we should just move here.

Surprisingly, it took us all of about 10 seconds to decide. We’d been thinking about moving to Florida for years, taking family vacations here for four summers straight, and we loved the idea of escaping the big city for a small town.

Sure, it’s a tourist town, but it feels like a small town.

With my parents already living here, the decision felt so much easier, way less daunting than when we first considered moving to Florida on our own.

Back then, it would’ve just been the two of us, starting fresh in a new state with no support system. But now? We wouldn’t be alone. That made all the difference.

Right after we had that thought, we found a condo just around the corner from my parents’ place. We looked it up online and, luckily, it was available and within our price range.

I say “price range” loosely, because I wasn’t going to have a job right away, and money was going to be tight. I had to dig deep into my savings to make the move happen.

Breaking Leases and Saying Goodbye: The Emotional Rush to Move

Not only were we paying a year’s worth of rent upfront, but we also had to break our lease, and move all our stuff across the entire country. We applied for the earliest rental available and, once approved, I put in my two weeks at work.

Then came the harder part: telling our friends and family. It was way more emotional than I expected.

I mean, it wasn’t like we were moving to another country, just an 11-hour drive or a quick two-hour flight away. But saying goodbye to everyone we knew still hit hard.

After that, everything turned into a rush. I gave notice to my apartment complex and paid the fee to break the lease. We didn’t want to wait around…we wanted to move as soon as possible.

The Great Purge and Last-Minute Setup: Preparing for the Big Move

I started checking things off the list: scheduled the cancellation for the electricity, internet, and renters insurance.

I sold my car, since I wasn’t going to be working for a while, we figured I didn’t really need it. So, I canceled my car insurance too, did my change of address, and started packing.

We decided to sell the couch, the bed, and the washer and dryer—basically anything big and bulky—because there was no way we were hauling all of that across the country to Florida.

We were doing the move entirely on our own, so the less stuff, the better. We sold everything on OfferUp and ended up sleeping on air mattresses until moving day. Honestly, reading this back… it sounds insane.

A lot of the other furniture went to friends and family. I gave away a ton, and tossed even more. It turned into one big purge. I’m still not sure if it was a healthy purge, a stress-fueled purge, or just a full-on everything-must-go situation.

Probably all three. I got rid of so much that I honestly couldn’t even tell you what half of it was.

Then came the fun part, getting everything set up for the new place. The condo needed us to sign up for renters insurance, electricity, and water before we moved in. It was all incredibly stressful, especially on a deadline.

We gave ourselves basically a month to get everything done… and somehow, we pulled it off.

The Day We Left It All Behind

MOVING DAY! In February—yikes, right? It was so cold. I kept praying we wouldn’t get hit with a snowstorm because that drive would’ve been miserable.

My amazing fiancé packed up the entire truck, and I cleaned the apartment for a final walk through.

We barely finished in time, it just took so long to clean. We had to return the apartment keys that day, and we were seriously pressed for time. After we dropped off the keys we were homeless in Dallas.

Everything we owned was in a U-haul. We drove the truck to his mom’s, so we had a place to sleep for the night. We left super early the next morning. All our stuff, plus a trailer with our other car (my fiancés), and our cat Sushi.

What normally is an 11 hour drive, it took us 16 hours. My poor cat sat in her little carrier the entire time. She just slept, didn’t come out once. I felt so bad for her. But once we got to my parents’ house, she was happy.

They have such a huge place, and she loves it! Well… minus the dogs. She could definitely do without them, but she tolerates them.

Unpacking Life: The Highs and Lows of Our First Week

The next day, we had to unload the trailer and return it. Mind you, this was the first time we had actually stepped inside the condo, we’d only toured a different unit when we visited my mom before.

I had no idea what to expect. It was… okay. I wasn’t in love, but we made it homey, and honestly, I like it way more now.

After we finished unloading the U-Haul, we had to load a couch, one my mom was giving up, onto the truck, then unload that too, all before returning the truck that same day.

Once we dropped it off, we set up our temporary bed (a.k.a. the couch), and started settling in and unpacking.

I was so grateful my mom gave us that couch, we had nowhere else to sleep! She even cooked for us since all our kitchen stuff was still in boxes. Everything just seemed to be falling into place. For a moment, it felt like the universe was giving us a break.

But not even a week after we moved in, my fiancé’s dad passed away. He had to fly back to Dallas immediately. I stayed behind, for a few reasons: one, last-minute flights were insanely expensive; two, someone had to take care of Sushi; and three, we were expecting our new mattress to be delivered.

He flew to Dallas alone, and I stayed behind, spending my days unpacking, cleaning, and organizing as much as I could. I wanted everything to feel perfect for him by the time he came back.

And as luck would have it, the mattress arrived. But in my stubborn attempt to do it all myself, I threw out my back trying to move it.

I was just trying to lift it onto the box spring, another thing my parents kindly gave us, so we’d finally have a real place to sleep after days on the couch.

The Trials of Our First Few Months

It took weeks to recover after I threw out my back. I could barely walk, let alone carry anything. Those two weeks felt like forever. Just as I was finally starting to feel better, I got a call from my mom, she had fallen and broken her wrist.

Thank goodness I was nearby and able to take her to the hospital. Her husband was out at the time, and we couldn’t reach him until after I picked her up.

She broke it badly enough that she needed surgery, and her recovery took about two to three months. During that time, some of their friends came to visit, so I stayed pretty busy helping out, cooking for everyone, keeping things together, and doing what needed to be done. It got stressful at times, especially with a full house, but I did what I could.

After the guests left, I continued helping my mom as she slowly started regaining independence. But during those months, I found myself doing everything for everyone. I’d cook and clean at their house, then come home and do the same at ours.

It felt like as soon as one visit ended, another one began. A few quiet weeks would pass, and then—more family, more hosting, more chaos. Whenever people come to visit, my fiancé and I kinda become the default tour guides.

We show everyone around, take them out, and make sure they have a good time. It’s a lot of work, and honestly, it can get exhausting.

I felt like I wasn’t doing anything for me…like my life had become about everyone else. Whenever someone needed something, I’d drop everything to help, even if it meant pushing aside my own needs. What I wanted didn’t seem to matter.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful for everything my parents have done. But before I quit my job, I was already giving 110% of myself at work, and it was just too much. I felt like I was constantly sacrificing—at work, at home, for everyone else. When we moved it was happening all over again.

I didn’t want to live like that anymore. I didn’t want to keep giving everything I had and leaving nothing for myself. I was running on empty, and something had to change.

Just as things were beginning to settle, a water leak popped up in our condo. It turned out to be from our neighbor’s faucet, which had been dripping while he was at work. Water started leaking from our living room ceiling. He came home and shut off the water, but our ceiling was still dripping.

Thankfully, none of our belongings were damaged. But it took the HOA a full week just to decide what to do. Then another week to get the place dried out, and a few more days to make repairs.

During that time, people were walking in and out of our condo almost daily, and often without notice. It was incredibly inconvenient and made it feel like we had no space of our own.

And then, of course, more family came to visit. I can’t help but want to spend time with them, but they’re on vacation, and we’re just living our everyday lives. It’s hard to juggle both sometimes.

Questioning Everything

At this point, I kept thinking, Why did I even move here? It felt like one thing after another.

I started to question whether we made the right decision. I had so much time to think, maybe too much. The plan was always to move here and figure out a way to make a living online.

Whether that was a remote job, reselling, blogging, or a mix of it all, I didn’t know. And honestly, I felt frozen. So, I distracted myself the only way I knew how: binge-watching a YouTube show, trying to avoid the inevitable, figuring out what the hell to do with my life.

I felt like I didn’t even know who I was anymore. I had worked for years, provided for myself, paid my own bills. I didn’t know how to let someone else take care of me. Not knowing if things were getting paid, because I wasn’t the one paying them, was a whole new kind of anxiety, with my fiancé being the caregiver for now.

I used to be a worker, a provider, an independent woman. I gave up my savings to make this move, but now what? I didn’t have a clear next step. I knew what I thought I should do, but was that really what I wanted?

Somewhere in the middle of all that pressure and uncertainty, I completely lost myself. I had a meltdown, like a full-blown, crying-on-the-floor kind of moment. I threw a fit.

One of those hardcore ugly cries, when you make weird noises when you try to talk. I gave my fiancé a hard time. He tried to be understanding, and honestly, I know that couldn’t have been easy. From the outside, I probably just seemed ungrateful or unstable.

I was living in this beautiful place…the place we had dreamed about moving to for years, and yet, I was deeply unhappy. I felt disconnected from everything.

Mostly, I just felt lost. That word echoed in me over and over: LOST. It felt like I was going through an identity crisis, and I think I did.

Finding a New Spark

YouTube became my new best friend. I started watching these two shows…Jolly and Korean Englishman. They mostly reviewed different kinds of food, and on Korean Englishman, they focused on Korean food.

Since I’m Korean, I was immediately drawn in. What surprised me was how much I started learning, about Korean culture, language, and traditions, just by watching.

As a Korean American, I honestly didn’t know much about my culture. Growing up, my mom wanted me to fit in as much as possible, so I was Americanized early on. I never learned Korean, never celebrated Korean traditions, and didn’t even think to question it until I was older.

But something about those videos made me curious, hungry to know more. I watched and watched, absorbing everything I could. For a while, I even tried learning Korean just from watching the show.

It gave me something to focus on, something that felt like it could matter. But soon, that familiar pressure crept back in, that voice that said I needed to do something more “productive” with my life.

Eventually, I drifted away from the show. I still loved it, but I felt restless again, like I was still searching for something. That’s when I started watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon, and that show changed everything for me.

Something about Maisel’s boldness, her attitude towards life, and the way she chased after what she wanted, sparked something in me. Watching her, I started to see a picture forming of what I might want to do. I realized I needed to start my blog. I wanted to tell stories. I wanted to create something mine.

And so, I did!

Here we are!

And here you are, reading this long story from someone who felt like a nobody. Someone who lost her way… but somehow found a path again, through a TV show.

Thank you for taking your time to read the rantings of a crazy lady.

Thank You for Sticking With Me

If you’ve somehow made it this far, thank you. Truly. The fact that you’re here, reading this, means the world to me.

I hope you enjoyed this little rant of mine… this long, winding story of how I lost myself, and somehow found a spark of meaning again through a show. Life is weird like that.

I really hope you come back to read more of what I have to say. There’s more to come, and I’d love to have you along for the ride.

It all started because of this show…check out my post on [The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel]