It feels great to be home. I get to live, work, create, love, get wacky, laugh, work out, and pretty much do everything else with my best friend, my shlish. And its been a long time coming for us to share so many experiences with each other again. On the same note, I am so thankful to be able to spend time with my brother. He was pretty young when I left, and i will always hold a little bit of guilt in my heart for not being there while he was growing up. I feel like this is my chance to make up for lost time. And while it has usually been at separate times lately- being with my parents is always a good reminder of where I came from, who I am, and what I am capable of being. Really. This home is good to me. This home is good for me.
Aside from the joys of being with my family and friends, I have been spending time doing THINGS that I love. Creating. Driving the back roads. Walking barefoot in the grass. Enjoying everything the East Coast has to offer this time of year. All the while learning new things that I have always wanted to learn and having a job that lets me express myself creatively. Its pretty amazing.
still ...
I do have another home. I have faced the realization that I will always be leaving one home to get back to the other.
And recently my love for Ocean Beach has been flooding back into my life. Through videos I stumbled upon, and email updates, and voicemails from dear friends. I have been reminded so much in the past 3 days of just how much I love living in Ocean Beach, San Diego- I just know I will be back. This was always the idea. This was always the "plan" when I came back to Maryland. But it just feels so good to reassure myself that it IS my other home. I am allowed to have more than one.
I will never have the Appalachian trail in San Diego. I will never have Dog Beach in Maryland. I will never have the smell of manure baking in the sun in OB, and I will never have the salty breeze in the air in Middletown. But I will always feel at home, whether I'm on Monument Rd, or Newport Ave. And I am extremely grateful that I have found in 2 places what some cannot find anywhere.
I love that you wrote this because I still think about living back there and I'm always comparing the two. I didn't live or establish myself in san diego nearly as long as you, but it's a place that instantly leaves a permanent mark on you. It's the place that forever changed the course of my life. Both places are polar opposites in some respects, but in emotions they can be very similar to me. I loved that you posted those two pics next to each other because I played a little game with Ryan and without explaining, said "look fast at both of these pics and tell me which one you gravitate towards/pulls at your heart" and we both answered the bottom one- the appalachian trail. that's where our journey is centered right now...
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