Hello all,

I write while leaning on the “breakfast bar” (didn’t know that was a thing) in a gorgeous kitchen in Walterville, Oregon. I’ve been living in this house for almost three weeks, which seems simultaneously longer and shorter than my perception would suggest.

Since I last wrote, I’ve traveled through five states. I spent a few days in Chicagoland with my folks, spent just under a week in Milwaukee at my sister and brother-in-law’s watching their house, spent a week with JT in Denver (and surrounding), then flew to San Diego to spend time with a dearly loved family of mine, traveling thence through another dear friend’s stomping grounds in Irvine then up to West LA to stay with my brother and catch the end of my parents’ weekend visit with him.

The itinerary evolved as I went. On the way, a new development materialized that has shaped my last four weeks.

While in San Diego, I received an out-of-the-blue response to an assistant coach application I had submitted to a university in Salem, Oregon weeks prior without any expectations. The initial phone conversation I had with the head coach sounded extremely promising and like a strangely good fit. God? Is this You coming through? I thought. What a crazy coincedence. I had sorely lacked a direction; in fact, I had felt completely untethered since having to leave the UK without a defined next step or location in the States. This seemed an interestingly unlikely turn of events.

I didn’t have a reason to be anywhere in particular after LA. As wildly random provision would have it, my brother C’s roommate’s family lived about an hour from the university in question. After enjoyably random phone calls and remote introductions and some incredibly generous amicability, I was buying a one-way plane ticket to Eugene, Oregon to stay with said family for an indeterminate amount of time while pursuing this job opportunity.

The story doesn’t need to be dragged out – many other inconsequential details and happenings aside, I ultimately did not get the job. Ironically, my final phone conversation with the head coach at this university could have been a carbon copy from a conversation I had – with a similar head coach, in a similar situation, in the same conference, for the same reason – last year. I can’t commit to a full-time role right now and someone else could.

I just got that news a couple nights ago. It was a rush of adrenaline; a long-awaited response; a deflating and demoralizing outcome. Though I definitely had my doubts about whether I’d be able to satisfy the job requirements even in the part-time capacity I was being considered for, the answer was much more disappointing than I expected it to be.

I’m trying to make sense of what to do next and why this crazy detour happened at all, but for right now I need to touch down somewhere. My sights are set once more on trying to make some kind of living situation viable in Denver to be close to JT while continuing to work on Fathom through at least the end of the year. Then after that I don’t know. I’m confused; incredibly thankful for and indebted to the people who have supported and housed and cared for me over the last weeks; and peering through the mist for a landing strip.

Until next,

-LS