fast forward

It is now October and my last post was sometime at the begining of June. A lot has happened. I don't know where to start so, I guess I'll start with today.
A few hours ago, I came home from San Louis Obispo. This is actually my second trip there since my last post. Last time was a long awaited vacation. This time a scouting trip, sniffing out the town for what it's truly like when I am not vacationing. Relocation is the goal.
Somewhere North of this city. Somewhere, where you don't have to sit in traffic for an hour and a half to go 30 miles. Somewhere, where you can go to a movie theater on an actual date and not have to worry about the homie and his primo in front row having a conversation in full-blast, in a cinaplex where the staff is either too young or too stupid to do anything. I am looking for a city where I don't run into people I used to know (wink-wink) and can visit all sorts of new places I love and not have to avoid. I am hoping a new town will bring a peaceful nights' rest without the neighbors having a party or a fight or bad guitar lessons being practiced over and over. I am anticipating new sunsets, new sunrises, the kind that make you glad to be alive. I want a little coffee shop I can walk to in the morning before work , and have the guy at the counter know me well enough to start the actual order before I even get to the head of the line.
I want a small house with a yard for the cats, soft grass to walk on when watering the lawn. I want to be happy when I get up and be happy when I get home. I want to go to a job with new faces, new clients- just for the change alone. All of this and more. I am hoping, wishing, praying (and know that those who really know me know that I do not pray), that SLO will be all of these things.
Something to look forward to, moving.
This isn't the first time I have thought of leaving the LA area. When I was 19 I almost moved to Monterey, Ca. I even put a small deposit on a studio apartment- no one actually knows that. And then I changed my mind. I was really scared all of a sudden, and the fearlessness that had consumed me in the moment suddenly escaped every pore of my body and I realized I knew no one there. I realized I was running away from the present and the things that were important and the things I needed to resolve- in person. Thank God, I stayed. I was too young, too naive and too impulsive. I don't regret it.
4 years ago, I almost moved to Seattle, WA. This time I was in love and willing to follow/pursue/chain myself to the person I was in love with. STUPID. My family was freaked. I was going to move, well... because he was going to move! I went there on two trips, didn't really feel as if it fit, but was willing to go anyway. A new city is always good, right? Well, an intercepted email changed everything. Maybe not so intercepted... I was sent a reply (by mistake?) of his plans not to move to Seattle at all, but to take a job in Paris- and move there alone. Sounds like a bad episode of Sex and the City. He wasn't even going to tell me, or maybe this was his way because he couldn't verbally say it to me. Lots of men can't handle crying, but I digress. Seattle. Bleah. I hate that place for a lot of reasons.
So, sometime between then and now I have been kicking around the idea of fleeing SoCal. But this time I am not running or following, just going. And I have company.
I know I sound crazy. People literally risk their lives to be here. I am 25 mins from the beach, an hour from the mts and desert and 5 mins from my parents. ALL my friends live here. ALL of family members (the important ones) live here. And I want to move?
Yeah. I think I do.
If I don't leave, I'll never know what it was like to live outside my safety net and I am finally at an age where I can do it, and have very little regrets if it doesn't work out. But I think it will.
A small nest egg sits quietly under a mattress. I am leaving. Soonish.
Being in SLO this weekend was like wearing the best pair of jeans you have ever bought for yourself. The kind that you second guessed over and over again because of their price. You new what you would have to give-up if you purchased them,
but they just felt so damn good, you had to do it.
So you go without a few things you love for a while to wear this perfect pair that cost you, well... a lot. But you know from here on out, it was the best purchase you could have made, you will take them everywhere, they will go with everything and you will be happy you got them, everyday.

Soon.