For everything that happened in the past three months, my situation is remarkably positive. It’s a tale of survival, against odds and expectations. It’s underpinned by luck, hard work, and the effort of dozens of kind people who tried to catch me when the rug was pulled from under me. Some of them known to me, some of them total strangers acting out of instinct and respect. I’m someone that people want to support.

The net result is that, against all expectation, I’m still here in San Francisco. At a time when entire industries are collapsing around us, I’m employed in my industry of choice, and very well paid for it, too. No matter how gutting it is to see Brickhouse and all that potential shot down, the eventual itinerary of my new job will provide good opportunities, once it all settles. It’s a good role in its own right, just not magical like it was before.

I chose to stay. I could have gone home. Back to Cambridge, or London. Back to my friends there. Someone would hire me; probably. I chose to stay because in six months my life has filled up with more wonderful things than I had before. The lifestyle, culture and environment of this city feels right. Here, there are people that I have grown quickly fond of. Some, very fond. It’s a place I’ve become sentimental about, and I recognise that in general, there are great things I can achieve here.

It wake up late on Saturdays, I sit in furniture I bought for myself in an apartment that I’m slowly tailoring to my own tastes and wants. I can walk to almost everything. Almost everything that I want to have nearby, is. I can sit in bright, warm sunshine in a beautiful park in March. I’m inspired to think and to draw and to make. I’m creatively more alive than any other point in years.

I walk down the streets of my neighbourhood and appreciate the beauty of where I live. I notice more of the subtle things.

When I walk up the stairs of my apartment building, I pull up a list of 10,000 pieces of music, on a device less than a centimetre thick, and it starts playing in my living room before I’m through the door. Sometimes the piece of music I select is the theme from Super Mario Brothers.

I don’t own a Wii for the sole purpose of playing Mario Kart only because I think it’s an extravagance. Not because I can’t actually afford it.

I live in one of the great wine producing regions of the world. I only eat nice cheese.

Today I felt my first earthquake since moving. Rather than fear for my life, I was instead struck with awe at the fragility of the Earth, and found it quite inspiring.

If I were intending to make a list of all these things, I could go on for pages.