Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they’ve known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? Why climb this Mount Everest of formalities that makes you feel like a beggar? Why enter this jungle of foreignness where everything is new, strange and difficult?
The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life. – Yann Martel
There has been a disappointing aspect of moving to the Bay Area. I don’t miss LA. Not because the fog penetrated and stole my soul in the Sunset district the first three weeks of my time here. Not because I had been busy helping plan my marriage to my best friend in Oakland. And not because it’s only been 61 days.
I’m disappointed to learn, or rather, confirm, that I’m OK with missing LA, but not my LA friends. I was half hoping I’d find my homesickness remedied with In N’ Out and a daily dosage of LAist.com and Curbed LA. Instead I find comfort in the streets of San Francisco, or at least down in Lakeshore here in Oakland, quenching my rare need of gregariousness. The equivalent of turning on the friendly TV when home alone. I’m not really watching the scene, I just need a chatty noise of friends with friends.
I’ve never been the kind of guy that had a clique. Never had a buddy that I made a ceremonial blood oath with, or called everyday, and eventually his wingman in singlehood. As a child I preferred to play by myself, never joined sports teams, or any local gang. I lived in my head. I thought me strange for the longest time. I imagine this untethered life is what got me out of my home town, and into LA. This occurred to me this past weekend home with mom in Pomona. I sat in the front yard listening for familiarity and nostalgia. I heard a distant freight train, chickens and the trees. I heard a simple childhood that grounded me in reality while in reality, and allowed me to dream in dreams. I heard the comforting silence that allowed me to be the budding ADD kid who didn’t quite fit in the puzzle of Pomona. I had the isolated eccentric childhood any doctor today would be proud to prescribe Ritalin.
In LA my obtuse ends fit into the puzzle. I found friends with matching obtuse edges. I moved to San Francisco to learn. My first lesson is that it isn’t a city that brings the pieces together, it’s friends themselves. I’m just happy I married and moved up with the best fitting piece, showing a hint of a picture other puzzle pieces might want to help complete.
People move because of the wear and tear of anxiety. Because of the gnawing feeling that no matter how hard they work their efforts will yield nothing, that what they build up in one year will be torn down in one day by others. Because of the impression that the future is blocked up, that they might do all right but not their children. Because of the feeling that nothing will change, that happiness and prosperity are possible only somewhere else.
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Written by mau
Topics: lifehack, rants