This is a repost of a blog that originally appeared on my now-defunct lieawake.com blog. I’m posting here because it contains backstory for my upcoming book.
Eight months ago I posted about my grand, new adventure heading west. I sold just about everything, said goodbye to my friends, packed up the KiSpo and hit the fuckin’ road. Straight up.
What you don’t know, though, is that something big happened between the time I made up my mind to leave and the day that I actually left. I met someone. Well, I re-met someone.
I fell in love.
I fell hard — so hard that it took my breath away a bit. I had finally found someone who saw me, who heard me. Someone who felt the feelings I felt and shared the values I valued. Better yet, this person was in love with me, too. This is it, I thought.
This love affair kicked off almost exactly one month before my departure date, so we spent every minute together. He helped me pack the rest of my things and once the contents of my apartment were whittled down to essentials only, he invited me to stay with him. With eleven or so days to go, I thought why not?
Those last few weeks were bittersweet. The timing of this ultra-spontaneous relationship felt just right, considering life’s impeccable albeit jarring sense of humor. It was a bit of an emotional roller coaster — you know, the whole falling in love and then having to move across the country thing.
Having to? Yes. I was committed to making the move. I told myself I would at least give it a chance. I had fallen in love with L.A. first, after all. So there was that and the promise I made to myself long ago to never let a man — or anyone outside of myself, for that matter — affect my plans or priorities.
On September 30th at 7 a.m., I hit the road, after a month-long whirlwind romance. It wasn’t over, and he had already made plans to come out to visit. It was an ellipses, not a period or even a comma. I was going to give L.A. a shot, and he and I would…
The journey to the west was everything I hoped it would be. I ventured through parts of the country I had never seen, and I enjoyed some much-needed alone time with the Universe. Then, in Wyoming, he surprised me. He had driven to catch up with me and we had an amazing time staring up at the star-lit sky and reconnecting. The air was cool and crisp, and the backdrop to everything was mountains and more mountains.
The next day, I continued on to my next destination and he to his. Each moment spent with this person strengthened the gravitational pull I felt luring me back to Chicago. But I pressed onward, because promises.
More Wyoming. Utah. Nevada. Then the promised land. I arrived in West Hollywood just before sunset and got settled in at my Airbnb. I couldn’t wait to explore and photograph everything. I geared up to start an apartment search, and I longed for the coming weeks when I would be able to see him again.
But L.A. fell a little flat for me. That’s not entirely true and probably a little unfair to the greater L.A. metropolitan area. I will say that my heart was fully enveloped in Santa Monica — and a piece of my spirit still lives there, calling me back. But West Hollywood and some of the surrounding areas were not filled with the same life and vigor they had when I visited the first time, pre-pandemic. It broke my heart a little bit. But 2020 was a heartbreak-filled year.
When he came to visit for a week, the cracks really started to break through. In L.A. In my conviction to stay. In our relationship. I didn’t fully comprehend the latter at the time, but there were some definite signs that things were amiss. Yet I was entangled in oblivion of contemplating a life-altering move, being away from home, and the pandemic blues. So I soldiered on, knowing in the back of my mind that I was probably going to return to Chicago and be with this man.
I wasn’t completely convinced, though. So when my stay at the L.A. Airbnb was up, I decided to trek to Galveston, TX to see if my heart would flutter there.
But it all felt very empty. I missed the man. I missed my friends. I missed home. So back home is where I went.
Arriving back in Chicago at 5 a.m. roughly 18 hours after leaving Galveston felt like a real homecoming. I was exhausted yet relieved. My heart swelled and I was certain that I had made the right decision. To this day, I’m certain that leaving L.A. at that time was exactly the right move. But my certainty about everything else started to crack and shed and vanish in the wind like sand in the desert almost immediately after I got back.
I’m not going to get into details about what happened because I don’t want to relive the drama and horror of what transpired over the following four months (editors note: this will be in the book 🙂 ).
I will say that the ending was a crescendo-scored flashbang that is the stuff of nightmares, only matched by smaller crescendos of fear that peaked throughout those four months. Thankfully, a friend took me in when I finally decided to pack my bags and leave. Also thankfully (and only by the grace of the Universe), I had begun a housing search before fists hit the wall shit really hit the fan.
If nothing else, the immensity of the emotional roller coaster during those few months was enough to light a fire under my ass about buying a place. Just shy of one month after I made my escape, I closed on my first place. There she is again — life — with her impeccable sense of humor sprinkled with a dusting of destiny.
I’m back in Chicago. Back back. Locked in with real estate back. And I’m content with this. It was the right choice for me, despite the rocky, snake-laden, treacherous road it took to get me here. I can’t say I don’t plan on returning to California, because at this rate, who fucking knows. But I know that today, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
The entire experience unveiled parts of me I didn’t know existed and also uncovered what is important to me in relationships — and the types of seemingly innocuous but ultimately damaging behavior I will not stand for, especially when it’s indicative of larger problems and serious trouble further down the road. And I’m not just talking about romantic relationships. It’s funny how something with such gravity can rewire one’s entire perspective on the types of companions one deems fit for this life — and how much more quickly and easily one can shut bad shit down and dispel repugnant behaviors (and people).
Tl;dr: I’m back. I’m happy. I’m wiser.
And the best is yet to come…
