Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Sasha Pasulka
My boyfriend and I recently moved in together. There was no “which of our tiny apartments should we move into” conversation, because there were two dogs (one big and one small) and an early-stage human (small) among our combined households.
We got a house. In Kirkland.
I haven’t lived in a house since I was sixteen. Everything is so different. I didn’t realize that a house still has a traditional mailbox, one that goes right in front of your driveway, and when you put a letter in it you raise the little red flag so the postman can be made aware that today you wish to communicate via U.S. Mail, but only because the Pony Express never answers your telegrams these days.
It felt like a blast from the past, when really it was just an indicator that I’d been living in either dorms or rented apartments in an assortment of American metropolitan areas for the better part of the past 15 years.
At some point, it occurred to me: I had a house to decorate. A real house! With lots of different rooms and shapes and spaces. Every room could have its own little motif! I would hang family photos. I would find motif-appropriate, independently created art. I would need power tools. I would buy curtains.
That’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past week, and I’ve felt happier and more fulfilled than I have since the early years of starting my company. I have a project that I’m excited about! I’m excited about its potential. I’m excited about all I will learn in the process, new words like grommeted and valance and finial; I’m excited to watch myself get better at things with practice — to use a drill for the first time, and to use it properly by the fifth time. To hang the first set of rods and curtains in an hour, with plenty of help from YouTube, and to hang the second set in fifteen minutes, no help from the Internet required.
I haven’t wanted to sleep or eat or do anything but shuttle back and forth between Target, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond and my new house. I just want to be working on it all the time. It makes me so happy!
This is the version of me who starts companies, who launches products and who figures out a way to quickly learn anything she needs to know to get from point A to point B. That version of me has been quiet lately. It’s needed a rest, I suppose. And sometimes I can get to thinking that it’s gone, and then something like this happens, and I know that it’s not.
“We have plenty of time to do this, Sasha,” says my boyfriend, who’s been travelling for work during the better part of the last two weeks. “I feel bad that you’re having to do it all without me.”
But I like doing it on my own. I learn more that way. I like making my own mistakes, and I love the rush that comes when I figure it out all by myself.
Plus, when he gets home, I’ll have my very first user.
