I’ve barely been in Taiwan two weeks and within those two weeks, so much has changed and so much has happened. I spent ten days in Taipei training at the main office for my company, met forty other individuals from other parts of the world, and then two days ago, we were guided to the bus station or train station to each set off on our next step: moving to our branches.
A stroke of luck had me placed in Taichung, a city I had been to only briefly before but had fallen in love with in the process. Sitting on the bus watching as the scenery changed from the bustling city of Taipei to the quiet outskirts of Taoyuan, I was thrilled when I finally saw the familiar landscape of Taichung. This was home now.
My first day in Taichung was its own rendition of International House Hunters. My new boss and another coworker of mine had a list prepared and agent phone numbers written down. One of the realty agents came and literally picked us up in his car to show us some of his properties. He drove all around the North district, showing me everything he could find. That, I know from experience, is something no real estate agent in the U.S. would even offer up to a client.
After what seemed like ages and a day’s worth of looking, I stopped at the last property. I had two places in mind from earlier in the day, but the moment I stepped into my last apartment of the day, I knew it was the one. I quickly said yes, signed my first lease, and needless to say, today a little later, I will be unpacking at last.
Through the course of training, plenty of emotions ran through my head: anxious, nervous, excited, happy, sad, frustrated, and everything else in between. Being in a new country it was unavoidable that these emotions would run through me, pulsing at the speed of light as I tried to process them.
As training came to an end, however, I started to accept that this was a good thing. One of our trainers paraphrased something I said the last day, right before we signed our contracts: you have to lose yourself to find yourself. Where I am now is going to challenge me, test me, and make me question all that I knew. It’s scary, but it’s something that will happen. Change is inevitable. You can’t go back, you can only move forward.
Never, ever, ever in a million years would I have thought four years ago that I would be here, with these people, and with the opportunities that I have laid out before me. I’m so excited for what the next year holds, and to explore Taiwan as much as I can. Here’s to losing who I thought I was and discovering who I truly am.
