I took the proverbial leap into space. Jumping without a net, all those wonderful sayings.
I left a place I swore I would never leave again. I love San Diego. I love it's warm winters and non-humid summers, love the proximity to Mexico and the resulting taco shop on every corner, love the ethnic mix and hearing multiple languages spoken around me every day. I grew up there, learned to keep my balance there and fell in love for the first time there. Had my heart broken for the first time there.
I love being in a town with professional sports and art museums and Shakespeare in Balboa Park. I love being close enough to L.A. to visit it easily, just as I love how Camp Pendleton keeps it at bay. I love $69 Southwest flights to Vegas and San Francisco.
So why did I leave?
Because there is something, or rather someone, here in the mountains that I love enough to make missing all of that worth bearing. She couldn't move, so I did.
Yes, I miss my friends and family. Most of all, I miss my children. If you know me, you know that it is not a cliche, or rather the cliche is true, to say that they are the light of my life, that I live for them.
But tensions with their mother were high. My being out of San Diego may help that. I hope it does. I hope without the constant reminder of my presence she will find it easier to be happy with the new state of our lives...and I hope and am gambling on that happiness making things easier for my kids.
And when I bring them here to visit with me in a few short weeks, I can be completely free and happy for the first time in a very long time. In the meantime, I'll talk to them a lot and make sure they know I love them... and hope they understand why I had to come here.
No sooner had I arrived then my new home was covered in the white blanket of the first snows of the year. I couldn't help but see it as an omen. As the gentle white rain filled in the imperfections of the meadow below, I compared it to smoothing out my life.
Snow is a blank slate. A fresh carpet on the world. Waiting for footprints, waiting for change. Waiting for children to play, for sunshine to reflect.
Everything old is new again.
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