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May 15, 2016 – Personal & Private Blog

March 1st, 2018 8:18 PM

I spent the day at Hawthorn coffee. God I love that place. The people are so kind – they call me “Miss Anne” and I love it. Everything there feels like home. San Diego feels like home. In my worst moments, San Diego embraced me. I challenged myself so much here. By having one aspect of my life outside of my job be steady and constant, I could let my emotional self roam free. I went to therapy for the second time in my life and fought hard with myself. I didn’t let myself off the hook. I returned and returned. I cried and cried.

When I arrived in San Diego, I had a backpack as I do now. I arrived exhausted. I couldn’t sleep through the night – I’d wake up every morning at 4am full of anxiety. I couldn’t control it. It was horrible. I didn’t realize how broken I was when I came here until I reflect upon leaving. This is why it’s good to let go – to question why you are where you are and to push yourself to leave.

I’ve learned to love leaving. It’s provides a space and a time to say thank you, to recognize growth, to see how you’ve changed, to stretch into a new future, and to keep you on your toes. I hope I always find a way to embrace leaving especially when my inner self so desperately just wants to stay.

I don’t think people realize that about me. I always find it easier to stay and to hermit and to hide. I always speak up, leave, and ask questions with a pounding heart and an anxious mind. It never feels comfortable.

When I arrived in San Diego, I was at the end of myself. I now feel I am at a new beginning. Tonight, I walked Mission Beach one last time with a friend I made here. She pointed out it was the start of a new moon cycle – “Time to reset!”. It couldn’t have been more perfect. We talked quickly and deeply as we meandered along the shoreline watching the sunset slowly evolve before us.

It was a simple sunset tonight – no clouds but lots of birds flying amidst the breeze. The sunset felt in a weird way like a reflection of my current state: simplistically leaving. There was no big fanfare – no clouds to accentuate the sun’s goodbye. It was there and it left.

As I left the coffee shop earlier today, I waved my usually goodbye “Have a good one!” As I thought I had made my quick escape into the world, one of the baristas turned friend ran from behind the counter to give me a hug – “Wait! You’re leaving leaving! You can’t just walk out of here like that!”. I’m not used to this feeling of being known or missed still – it still feels like such a rare gift.

Thursdays are usually trivia days. I managed to catch 30 minutes of tonight’s trivia session. I grabbed a beer and food from the awesome food truck outside. I left as casually as I could working hard not to get emotional. “Beer share to celebrate when you return, yeah?”. I already can’t wait.

Here’s what my Monday night soccer group, my Thursday night trivia crew, my Friday afternoon soccer group, and my favorite coffee shop gang don’t understand: on days when I didn’t want to leave the house, they gave me hope and community. I was in such a broken place when I arrived that I felt like an old engine – I sputtered out landing in San Diego teetering on the edge of breaking down. I can’t thank them enough. I needed people and they were those people I could have never dreamed up.

Over the last year and a half, I was able to not only rebuild myself but build upon myself. I stretched myself in ways that were beyond my expectations for my entire life. I went into the deepest deep end and built a relationship with my birth mom – something I have never fathomed and that I still am in awe of. I bought my first car – a gorgeous mini cooper – the car of my dreams (literally). I adore that lil thing. I put myself out there going to pick up soccer alone, starting a trivia group, saying “yes” to social get togethers that terrified me, going on DATES, etc. Who was the person who did that? Who was the person who made all of this happen? I look back stunned at my own work and growth. I don’t know how I made it through and how I made San Diego a place so hard to leave.

Going forward, I can’t wait to draw on this strength and on this fantastic foundation I’ve made for myself. I am strong – emotionally, physically, mentally. I made so much happen for myself and I did the handwork of figuring out what it is that I want. I made a life for myself and I did it from scratch.

I leave such a healed and different person. I will need this person in the coming months of full time nomading. I have a few plans in the near future – a trip to Europe with my mom, house sitting in Portland (new today), friends to visit in Utah (new today), friends to visit in Durango, 2 summer weddings, and house sitting in Denver. I have a lot of big beautiful dots stretching out in front of me – I get to choose how to connect them and I can’t wait to see how I do. I trust myself again. I can breathe again. I can sleep again. I can nomad again.