For the past few weeks leading up to my departure, I have been slowly selling items from my apartment. Primarily furniture, but also other, smaller items that I don’t believe I will need going forward.

It is a strange feeling. I have lived in this very apartment in Sunnyvale, in a gated apartment complex with manicured lawns, a heated pool and a jacuzzi for over six years. I clearly remember the day I moved in, it was the day of Barack Obama’s first inauguration. “If he is leaving, why should I stay?” would be a cheesy way to comment on this, yet it would be beside the point.

When I moved it I felt a sense of accomplishment, of pride, having recently turned my dream of one day working in the United States into reality and being financially in a position to afford such a place. I felt good about myself.

Today, I am a different person than that 29 year old guy who signed that leasing agreement in February 2009. I don’t think I belong here any more. I can still see myself coming back to California one day, but for now, I need to get out of this bubble, this place of urban sprawl, featureless residential areas and a downtown without real character. I need to see what it is really like out there, in the rest of the US and also the world.

Maybe I will come back here one day (well, I have to because I am leaving a few boxes with a great friend of mine), but until then I need to experience what else there is.