Home, again.

The most fabulous thing about living alone is you can be a real slob pig and maintain an aura of seductive mystery. It’s tempting to believe behind the gauzy curtain of single occupancy there’s Nancy Sinatra on the record player and chamomile tea in the afternoon. Pale yellow lingerie and pour over coffee. Folded laundry. Fresh lilacs. Mangos. Or possibly it’s a raccoon humanoid funneling those crispy onion straws you top salads with at 1 a.m. in underwear and inexplicably, a 7th grade soccer jersey.

Not sure if I buried the lede in my majestic prose but:

I now live alone. I have the responsibility of a household!

When I left my beloved San Francisco what I didn’t quite bargain for was that I had successfully become rooted. Which I guess bodes well for my original Ocean Beach manifestation. My whole ambition in life was to ingratiate myself into the community of my little beach oasis town. Absolutely obsessed with belonging.

I thought I could rip out the roots, throw them in my highly abused Prius, and get on down to the good times. So when San Francisco went into lockdown, I made the well informed and empathic decision to leave my ex & homestead by throwing my stuff in trash bags while mutter ranting about how I’d come back for the rest.

I moved in with my mother and sister while I plotted my next move. Not sure plot is a good descriptor. More like plodded. I plodded through long, unproductive days I was completely responsible for as I manically postulated my new life. I’d impatiently waiting for my mother to take a break from her Zoom World or my sister to get home from her essential work so they could drink wine with me and hear my latest psychotic game plan for the future.

At one point, I heavily considered moving into a remote beach shack where I could work-from-beach, raise chickens, not surf, and foster multiple dogs. I’d get so much writing done with just my chickens and wolf pack. I could invite people over for camp outs. I’d escape the news. I could totally handle a septic tank. I’ve been to Burning Man, man. I’d probably also want to cultivate a lush garden so I wouldn’t have to drive to town as often. Should I get a truck? A power drill? A gun?

I now remember tuning out the implications of my mother’s worried gaze as I repeatedly flipped through the Craigslist photos of the shack.

“Look at this tiny wooden kitchen!” I cooed. “Do you think the stove is firewood?”

I had an Edie Sedgwick on her last Factory film energy, except less glamorous as I lived in bike shorts and slept in my adolescent bedroom.

My pandemic breakup and subsequent spiral planning, fueled by mania and Belvedere, made me an unreliable narrator of my own fate. However, there was one echo I couldn’t shake.

I lived in Santa Barbara throughout college and early 20s. Santa Barbara is not an accidental paradise. The area excels in leisure, relaxed living and California with a capital C. Yet it carries a weight in the magic, it’s sensual surround sound. Mountains dotted with vistas and red tile roofs loom across the 101 where giants palms and dinosaur agave guard gilded beaches. Night blooming jasmine, eucalyptus, and orange blossom blend with sea salt air, potent but subtle, intoxicating. I was molded there from a irritating little colt into a semi stable young woman with enough vim, vigor ambition to try her hand at a new city and a new love.

Santa Barbara always flickered in my consciousness, a quiet and balmy daydream I’d return to again and again.

Now, I wanted to move back. I just did. I had a strong urge and feeling. It felt like the lock and key when everything else felt like a blackout. I wanted to walk along the estuary, behind the cemetery, hitting the cliffs, finding Butterfly Beach. I wanted to drink mezcal in the harbor, wine pulled from the sea, climb oak hills, take my favorite class, live in a craftsman, learn all the names of the roses at the garden, pet babies and dogs, and watch closely like a creep as women my age took on motherhood, marriage, and running households. While I went in the absolute reverse direction.

Is it strange to move back to the land of your 20s? Was I trying to recapture a feeling? I believe that ship has sailed. I am 32. Also egocentrically speaking, was I ready to be the new kid again, albeit without out that youthful shine? The zeitgeist panders to a very specific set and I had moved out of range a bit ago. In reflection, there is something wonderfully freeing about that. I admittedly found it discomforting.

I didn’t have a ton of baked reasons to move besides I could with my job and I had a warm heart when I thought about it. So I did it. I found a little bungalow slightly out of budget, bought new ceramic cookware, and took a leap.

I question myself constantly. I am often lonely. I sometimes feel unsuccessful, broke, and behind. So Santa Barbara itself has not solved the conundrum of my thirties. Shocking, I’m aware.

But I never question this place. I never question my tiny burgeoning newness. Santa Barbara remains my queen. I am able to dance with some of the most incredible women I have ever met. I hike with my best friend after work. My house is my own. My bills are my own. Healing is coming.

In the summer, my local friends’ threw an outdoor bbq and I was invited. We were a sort of wrecking crew 8 years ago, occasionally single monsters queens in mini skirts, making roasted vegetables and talking about our dreams. You lose touch in the way of roads traveled, one rides into the sunset, the other jumps off a cliff. Two sisters, now both married, a new little baby. My best friend, her husband, and their daughter. A visiting uncle, a cheese plate, and an inflatable pool.

We made passionfruit margaritas from a giant fern gully vine that winds itself around their house. We sat in the kiddie pool and watched the next generation lose their minds splashing. I was suddenly shy. I never felt so grateful. These people owed me nothing, yet I was in their home eating burgers, sharing my messiness, letting the new knowledge of their orange blossom lives wash over me like a perfect wave.

I didn’t deserve it, but I drank it in with pleasure.

“We’re so glad you’re home.”

Me too, friends. Thank you.