“:(” was the first thing in the message.
I had booked our last tickets into Denver and reserved the U-Haul that would take us out of it.
“Crazy!!!!!” was the second half.
The last few weeks had been all references, offer documents, resignation drafts, budgets, and truck prices. The reservation changed the move from a set of tasks into a route with a start point.
I was still finishing my time at Beatport. My resignation letter named August 6 as the last day, and Yodle was waiting in New York. Between those two jobs, we had to get back to Denver, load the apartment, deal with the Jeep, and drive everything east.
Denver had been home for years. It was where I worked at SimAuthor, took the job at Beatport, bought too many cars, started riding more, and got my first real chance to run infrastructure at startup scale. I was not leaving because I hated it. That made the final tickets feel stranger.
I had already been flying between Denver and New York so often that another itinerary should not have mattered. These were different. They were the last flights into the city before the move.
The U-Haul was one-way.
I sent the news to a friend at 11:13 on a Thursday night and asked if I would see her Monday. The whole update fit into three sentences. That was plenty. Everybody close to us had already heard about the interviews, references, apartment search, and cost of pulling a Jeep across the country.
There was nothing left to debate in that message. The offer was signed. Beatport had notice. The truck existed in a reservation system. New York was next.
I was sad to leave and very ready to go. Both things fit inside “Crazy!!!!!” without much trouble.