Home is where the heart is.

If home is where the heart is, then I am finally home.

A little over a month ago, I shared on social media my plan to move.

I have been in Seattle for a month now, and this is the best decision that I have made for myself in a long time–maybe ever. Moving to Seattle was something that I wanted since I started visiting in 2014. The first time was with a group of friends, but I later continued to come here on my own because I noticed how much more at peace and subsequently how much happier I felt here every time. Over the past two years, every time I visited, my question to myself transformed from, “Why don’t I just live here already?” to “Why don’t I just live here already?”

Last summer, I told myself that I would make it happen this January. Simply for the sake of making it happen, I had set a deadline for myself and even started sharing the news with my family and friends. My plan was to save up money from living at home, but come January, I was not financially ready to make the move. And quite frankly, I wasn’t emotionally ready, either. I felt that there were still things that I needed to do in LA–loose ends to tie up, relationships to further develop.

And while I did develop some of those relationships with intention and success, there were others that I couldn’t (some actually for lack of trying), which I later realized was because I had Seattle in the back of my mind the entire time. There was also a time that I impulsively wanted to move here to just get away from all of my struggles in LA. But thank goodness I didn’t, because I wouldn’t want to have come here, treating Seattle as an escape. I wanted to come here, treating Seattle as home.

This year, I visited Seattle in January, and then again in June. After that last visit, I began to more seriously ask myself that same question, and I tried to think of all of the reasons I shouldn’t make the move. It boiled down to one: money. But then I applied the same philosophy I always have to everything else I’ve enjoyed in life:

I can save up for years and years to maybe enjoy life and be happy later. But what happens if I die tomorrow? Then how happy will my money make me?

So, I gave up the financial freedom of living at home rent-free to pursue my dream of living in a place where my heart is happy, even if my bank account won’t be.

As I shared the news with others in person, they of course asked me why I was moving. Every time, they were surprised to hear me simply say, “For happiness!” Many people understood and accepted that response and even commended me for chasing my dreams, for pursuing my happiness. But then that got me thinking–as most things do. Has happiness become so elusive that it is now a dream? Has the pursuit of happiness become so rare that it is now commendable?

I’m not going to lie. At various points during my first week here, I did question whether I made the right decision for myself, for the future. But as the days passed, I realized that I did make the right decision for myself, right now. Who knows where I will be financially, emotionally, or otherwise in the next year, or even the next six months?

Tangents and asides aside, me finally being here can be summarized as such: Whenever I receive a text message asking, “How’s Seattle?” or “How are you doing up there?” My response is, “I am happy to be here.” Because I am finally home.

This is all to say, if you know what makes you happy, and especially if you have the means for it, pursue that. I really don’t think that there’s any reason better than happiness to do something, to go where your heart is.