Welcome home

I spent my birthday week in the glamorously smog-filled hometown of my birth. And I got the nastiest head cold of my life. Ironically, the NyQuil afforded me some of the best sleep I've had in months. That and sleeping under the same roof as my parents.

We had a brunch for my birthday, brilliantly orchestrated by my mother. I invited some of the girls that I was close with in high-school. It was a nice re-introduction to Los Angeles. And I have to say LA greeted me with warm, open arms. And so did my old girlfriends. Even though some of us have barely seen each other over the last (gulp) 17 years, they confidently arrived bearing thoughtful gifts, exchanged pleasantries with my family as if no time at all had passed, and took up the conversation where we last left off.

You see, to me LA is overwhelmingly associated with my adolescence. And in order to move back here, I would need to engage with it as an adult. Same with my friends, my family. And I find that very hard to do. Every street I drive down, every photo in the album, brings me back to that time when we are most fully alive in the experiential sense, least concerned with the consequences of our actions, and busy tearing down boundaries to remake dangerous and exciting lives.

It didn't help that my friend Kathy gave me the young adult book, What My Mother Doesn't Know and that I devoured it in a day.

I am terrified of leaving the adult life I have successfully built for myself behind. I am scared of the old habits I might return to were I to move back. But mostly, I am feeling more and more ready every day.