I'm coming up on my one year mark in the Queen City and I couldn't help, but feel a little sappy thinking about everything that happened, all those tiny little pieces that fell into place, to take me to a city that I never even visited before.

Rewind to October 2015. I was feeling off. I knew I needed a change of scenery, but I was comfortable where I was - living in Roanoke, working for an incredible marketing team, close to my family, you know the usual stuff that makes you feel like you're perfectly fine in your little bubble. But I wasn't. I knew in my heart that I needed something different, something that was bigger than where I was; I needed to take a chance. I always wanted to move to a bigger city, hey even at one point I applied for college in NYC because that was the place I could always picture my life. To no surprise, it didn't happen, but that's another story. 

As I started toying around with the idea of moving to a larger city, I started to get scared, but excited, but scared. Pretty much one big roller coaster of emotions, but I did it anyway. I had never been to Charlotte or Raleigh, but I started looking for positions in those areas because I had always heard good things. Two southern cities that had that small community feel, had the marketing gigs I always wanted, and were both not far from my family. OK, ok, that was enough to keep me hooked. I didn't look long for positions. To be honest, the real kicker was one click of a mouse to change my location on LinkedIn to Charlotte. Had I been to Charlotte? Nope. Did I live there? Absolutely not. But I changed it to start getting hits from recruiters in the Queen City because hey, no one is going to find a Roanoke, VA, girl and say, what the hell let's hire her.

Fast forward about a week later and a recruiter reached out to me about a position at a small, close knit marketing 'agency'. I won't go into details about the whole back-and-forth exchange, but I'll give you the cliff note version. I ended up applying for the position, sending my resume, taking 3 interviews, one of which was 3 hours long, and visited Charlotte twice before I knew that I wanted to live here. It all happened so fast, actually over a course of 3 weeks. And I took the job. I was excited. I was scared. And repeat. As I visited the city, I remember thinking - I could picture myself here, especially after walking around Dilworth. Swoon.

Fast forward to now: that first position didn't work out, but I am grateful for it. Not for the company, but for my decision. I'm grateful for taking a chance on a position and a city that was outside my comfort zone. I uplifted my life to move here and I did it all by myself (special thanks to my dad for pushing me to take a chance and to never let me settle).

Fast forward even more and I now have an incredible gig at a company I love. 

As I sit here and write this post, I'm tearing up. So much has changed along the way to get me where I am today. All those tiny little pieces have fit together so perfectly imperfect. Nothing in life is perfect, but those little moments that push you to change, to better yourself - be thankful for those. Take chances, make moves, do things for yourself, but never settle. As much as I was absolutely scared to death to move by myself, I did it. And for that I am thankful because I have slowly, but surely fallen in love with you, Charlotte...

*As my one year mark approaches (November 30th to be exact), I'll be doing one post a week on something I love in the Queen City. Stay tuned...