Sojourn Living: A Temporary Home

January 22, 2021 - This is when my journey with Sojourn Living started.

A little background on me: I was born and raised in a small town close to Pittsburgh, PA. I lived, mostly, in the Greater Pittsburgh Area until I was 25 when I moved to St. Augustine, Florida. I moved for grad school to get my Doctoral degree in Physical Therapy so that I could fulfill my life long dream of becoming a travelling PT. This was a big move for me, I knew nobody and was moving 15 hours away from a comfortable, great life I had in Pittsburgh. But, I started school and instantly clicked with a few classmates and I started working as a bartender at a local sports grill. (Shaughnessy's) The friends I made through school and through working at that bar have become some of my closest friends and family. It was the best move I could have ever made.

Then we graduated, in the year of COVID, end of August of 2020. As I studied for boards and thought about where I wanted to travel to on my first assignment, I was at a loss. I wanted to go everywhere and yet I wanted to go nowhere because the world was so different now. I had a great job bartending, I had the love of my friends and family around me and applying for other state licenses was, frankly, a pain in my butt (it still is). I had planned to backpack around Europe for a month or so before starting my life in the "real world", well that wasn't going to happen now. Some states were still having major restrictions on healthcare. Travel therapy was just getting started again as some states finally started allowing elective surgeries and human contact again, but the job options at that time were few and far between. I thought, it was not the time for me to be picking up and moving and starting a travel career that could easily be ended at any moment with the fear of another lockdown. However, as it turned into January, I started worrying more about never finding a job if I waited too long to get started right out of school. So, I looked for jobs along the east coast, that way I could at least be close-ish to my homes in Pittsburgh or St. Augustine as I started this journey. I searched for a month working with different recruiting companies, my dream job was not out there. I started getting desperate and discouraged and now on the lookout for anything at this point, as all good leads were falling though.

January 22, 2021. I will never forget this weekend. It was a Friday around 11 a.m., my recruiter called and said "I have a company that wants to interview you, it's not a setting that you want and it's on the other side of the country." My first reply was "Yes!" then "What's the setting and where are we looking?" The position was for a home health gig in Pueblo, CO and they wanted to interview me in a couple hours. My brain: A couple hours, okay, crap, I have to prep for an interview, I have to do some research on home health, I have to research the company, I have to research the location, I have to get ready for work (night shift at the bar). My brain was going a mile a minute. Home health was NOT what I wanted to do, I knew that. The company had minimal to no reviews and they were mostly subpar, at best. The area was rated to have one of the highest crime rates for a town of that size West of the Mississippi. I am not sold. Then 1 p.m. rolls around and the phone rings. I'm ready to talk about my strengths and weaknesses and I'm ready to ask all my questions about the company, at any rate it was good interview practice. It was a pretty short conversation. She asked me what experience I had in home health, I told her none at all, she then asked me if I was willing to learn, I said absolutely. She said okay, well I have to clear it with the person in charge of hiring but that shouldn't be an issue, I look forward to meeting you on Wednesday. (Remember, IT WAS FRIDAY.) I forgot everything I wanted to ask, I forgot all about not being sold, they wanted me to work there, I finally found a job. I said, "Wow, okay Wednesday, hope to see you then!" That evening around 6 p.m. I got a text saying they wanted to officially offer me the job. And I took it.

I finished my shift that night. Saturday my mom, aunt and uncle were in town visiting for the day, my roommates also had family in for the weekend, not my thought of ideal when trying to pack up my life for a cross country move. But they were able to help a little with the packing and I got to spend some quality time with my friends and family before making this move. I had another shift at the bar on Sunday night, where I got a last chance to say goodbye to the best patrons, coworkers and boss that have all become family and my biggest cheerleaders. Monday morning, 5 a.m., I was in my Jeep, Phoebe, ready to take on this next chapter. St. Augustine became a home that I frequent probably more often than I frequent Pittsburgh, living there and leaving there became my first step on this amazing journey and this exhilarating way of life.