Road Trip to the East Coast (#RT2EC): Part 1

Moving across the country during my fifth year of grad school was not something I expected. The pandemic, needless to say, has changed just about everything. This includes how I approach finishing up my PhD. I thought that when I left Pasadena, CA, it would be as Dr. Olivia Harper Wilkins. I feel somewhat defeated leaving SoCal empty-handed. COVID is pretty good at making us feel defeated.

I celebrated my birthday back in March with my officemates, who surprised me with cake, flowers, and ice cream sandwiches. At the time, the pandemic still seemed to be something far away. Outbreaks in Washington and New York were just anomalies, not harbingers of months of isolation as SARS-CoV-2 raged out of control across the U.S.

That weekend, the shelter-in-place orders were announced for California. Since March, I’ve gone to my office once, just a few weeks ago: to clean out my desk in isolation, without my friends to swap memories and laughter as I said goodbye.

Working from home for the last eight months has certainly had its benefits. There’s no rushing from one meeting to another across campus. For seminars I’m only moderately interested in, I can turn off my camera and do work. I get to spend lots of time with my son (and husband), who shower me with coffee breaks and walks around the neighborhood.

But working from home is also challenging. My internet is worse than that on campus (which is, any Techer will tell you, pretty awful). There are no breaks to take a walk around the Turtle Pond with a friend or two, or to grab coffee somewhere on campus. There are no more nighttime work dates at Starbucks or Coffee Bean with friends.

The most difficult part comes from one of the best aspects of the pandemic: nonstop access to my family. In Pasadena, we had a small Caltech-owned apartment. Our bedroom fit a queen bed and not much else, so my “office” was in the family room where Güni plays during the day. At four-years-old, Güni doesn’t understand that me being home from the office doesn’t mean Mommy+Güni playtime.

As the pandemic stretched for months, his patience for my working during the day grew thin, making it difficult for me to be productive. My work hours shifted to the evenings and into the early mornings. Sometimes, I wouldn’t go to bed until 3:00 a.m., and G is merciless if you aren’t up by 8:00. This became routine, and so I became routinely exhausted.

Alex suggested at the end of the summer that we move east before I finished my PhD. I don’t know what is in store for me next, but it will likely be on the East Coast or in Europe. Moving back to Pennsylvania seemed a logical stop on our way to our next adventure. Moving in April or May 2021 (with a tentative July 2021 finish timeline) turned into moving in February or March to moving in December and now, to moving in November.

That’s where I am now: moving to PA. I love Pasadena, but for about what I pay in rent for a Caltech-subsidized, small 2-bedroom apartment, I can get a 3-bedroom luxury apartment with in-unit laundry and a private rooftop deck. I’ll have my own office, so I can transition back to working more sustainable hours sans interruptions of a jaunt on Minecraft with Günther.

I am sad to be leaving the West Coast, but I am also excited to be closer to my parents and for Güni to see his cousins more often (the definition of cousin, according to G, is “when little children have best friends”). I’m also eager to have my own office and a nice apartment after Alex and I have had eight addresses in five years of marriage, much of which has been spent in student housing.

And so, we’re on our way to south-central PA. I’m currently sitting in a Days Inn in Erick, Oklahoma, a town along historic Route 66 about 6 miles east of the Texas-Oklahoma border and about 1040 miles from Pasadena.

I forgot how dark the night sky could be.