Goodbye, us!

We threw ourselves a goodbye party today. In the afternoon, lots of our friends with kids came with their kids. In the evening, more friends without kids came and things got less shrieky in a hurry.

Reminding ourselves how many cool people we know in Pittsburgh might not have been the best idea for our moving angst, but it was nonetheless fun to spend the day hanging out with cool people.

And reminds me to make the same resolution for Kirkland that I made for Pittsburgh but didn't totally succeed at: if people are awesome and I want to interact with them, I should try to interact with them instead of hanging back and wishing I was cool enough to interact with them.

Doha made socializing easy because you knew the expats had nothing better to do than hang out with you. So I wasn't shy about saying "Let's get dinner tonight" or "Can I sit at your table" or "Can you give me a ride home and hang out," because I wasn't scared they'd say "No, I have better plans." It takes a lot more bravery for me to request people's time and attention in the real world, because I am always convinced that people must have better things to do with their time. And then it's time to say goodbye, and I realize how many opportunities were unrealized because I was too scared of rejection.