With much conflicted feelings, I decided to leave my "location independent" lifestyle and settle down in San Diego, California. I told myself I'd travel for a year and see what happened, and yesterday marked 11 months, so that's pretty darn close.
Four weeks ago, I did a solo road trip from Tallahassee to San Diego. Even less than an hour after I left Tallahassee, I had the sense that I was going home. It made me so happy that I was going to have a home - not just a random place to crash for a few weeks/months - that I actually started crying before I was even out of Florida.
To my delighted surprise, I haven't once doubted my decision to stop moving around for a while. In San Diego, I'm home - totally home. It's like I gathered up all the other pieces of me that I left everywhere else around the world and put them back into place, and all that's left in the other locations is just the imprint in the dust that gathered around the pieces I'd loaned them for a while.
Of course, my fear of commitment didn't go away immediately, and I still struggle with thoughts of what will happen if I lose my job or if something bad happens to my family while I'm away or whatever. It seems like every time in my life up to this point that I try to settle down, something bad happens. I tell myself that it was just to get me to this time and place where I'm supposed to be - but sometimes the commitment-phobe in me doesn't listen. Even in the last four weeks, though, the fear has become quieter and less obnoxious.
This completely unexpected and welcome sense of having come home has prompted a lot of processing, as you can imagine, and I'm sure it will for months yet. For instance:
- I'm taking longer to find a church and community here, because I don't have to settle with the first group of people I meet.
- I don't know anymore if I should keep "wants to live all over the world" on my list of things I want in a man.
- I have to start paying attention to local news and politics again, because they actually affect me now.
- I have more things I want to achieve in life, but they're mostly things I can achieve here.
Some good things about moving to San Diego:
- I already have friends all over So Cal.
- A friend put me in touch with a roommate who is so compatible with me it's ridiculous.
- I'm back on Pacific Time.
- The ocean is nearby.
- People actually visit me now instead of just saying they're going to.
Not that I didn't love my "location-independent" lifestyle while it lasted; I did. I just feel like all of my life has prepared me to live in San Diego. The whole time I was traveling, I had this sense that I had to keep moving because I might be missing out on something better. But now, I don't. Like, maybe this is what I was looking for the whole time - but I sure wouldn't appreciate it this much if I hadn't lived in four other states in the last 12 months. Sure, I still want to mark the remaining 17 states and 3 continents off my list, and I haven't lost the desire to keep seeing the world - but I don't think I ever want to live anywhere else besides the greater San Diego area. Maybe I'm honeymooning a bit still, but I'm okay with that.
Now that I've bought four bookcases, a bed, and half of a living room set (my roommate bought the other half), I'm a little in mourning over the loss of the "easy" move I've been able to do every 2-13 weeks. Plus, my parents and two youngest brothers are driving the last of my stuff down from MN this week, so I'll probably never again be able to throw some stuff in my trunk and go.
So what about San Diego makes me feel at home? I don't have an exhaustive list yet, but here's a start. On a macro level, everything here feels "right" (Yes, I know you can't judge other places/cultures based on how yours does things; but having grown up in So Cal, I am hard-wired to think that the way So Cal does things is better) - everything from the palm trees to the 9-lane freeways to the street signs to the dining establishments (In-N-out, anyone?) to weather is just...right (for lack of a better, less-judgmental word).
Also on a macro level, it's everything I've ever wanted in the place I eventually settle down: big city, lots going on, lots to explore, not rainy all the time, not dusty and deserty, well-known location, day-trip adventure opportunities to keep me busy for a long time, and a super-fun downtown I probably want to live in someday.
I think it's the combination of big-city and Southern California that makes San Diego so wonderful to me - but even that doesn't explain it entirely, because LA wouldn't cut it; maybe it's the smog there or something, but LA hasn't felt like completely like home since I left in 2001. Here, I love the clear air, the multiculturalality, the friendlier feel, and easy freeway navigation. (This list is actually much longer, but I've been gushing long enough.)
I guess my concluding thought is that, I never thought I'd be completely at home ever again, and I have been pleasantly surprised by life and God. I can say unequivocally with C.S. Lewis that I have been "Surprised By Joy." Put differently: sometimes, God just makes me happy.
