Good Bye LA

August 1st

Good Bye LA

You have been good to me. You have taught me much, you have changed me much and you have healed me much.  In the beginning, you scared me. I felt lost in your confines, disoriented. I didn't speak your dialect, didn't understand your people and felt like a fish out of water. But you have tamed me over the years. We've had a love and hate relationship, for sure. I started off hating most everything about you, like your size, the smog, the traffic, the heat, the lack of character. 
But you have taught me how to find beauty in the 
ugly, and now,

there are many things I will sorely miss about you.

The thing is, you're surprisingly rich. Rich in hidden treasures, things that require time to discover... 










Like charming "hole In the wall" coffee shops or antique stores, canyons in the foothills, urban farming communities, jacaranda framed streets that bloom and rain all purple each May, and friendly, friendly people everywhere.   

From artists to scholars to laborers, a smile is so easy to get here. You have given me the best friends of mylife, the most amazing community I could have ever dreamed of, you have allowed me to blossom into the person I am meant to be and break free from cultural and family patterns that were suffocating. You have allowed me to be successful, creative and visionary. You have seen me add three letters After my name, become a therapist, business owner and mom in a little over a decade, and a blessed, blessed woman with much to be thankful for. I still hate your smog, traffic and heat, but I have discovered your beaches, islands, mountains and national parks, year-long sunshine, and I must say, you have it all. 

You are ugly-beautiful, and I will love you forever. You keep luring me in because you have so much to offer, and so, I must take a break from you, to gain clarity. I don't know if it's time to break up, or just to separate for a while. But my homeland is calling, and I must go and see if she might be what my family needs... I will miss you and your people terribly. I have become a woman, a strong one, who can drive on a six lane freeway with ease and juggle motherhood and career. 

I feel ready for this next chapters, and for the rest it will provide. You are exciting, but you are exhausting. I will miss your weather, surfing sessions, sunsets on the beach, the haul of coyotes and the song of crickets at night, starting up conversations with strangers at the store, Trader Joe's and Target, my beautiful friends and my church, other foodies, EFT colleagues, my sons' amazing schools and all that you have to offer, still. there is much Loss and grief in my heart, along with excitement as I go experience the things that I have missed for the last twelve years. 

Good Bye LA!