An impromptu sponsored staycation hiking around the island for a few days, starting a new teaching job at a much better hagwon, moving twice with a rough story to tell and puppies, puppies, puppies. That pretty much sums it up.
I may not have studied abroad in school like I had wanted but it sure felt like I was making up for lost time. It felt like I was away at sophomore year in college with all of the trials and tribulations that came with. Showing up with a little experience but man was it still hard. I was growing, at least. Good and bad, I was growing.
San Diego, I miss you for our beach life together. Waking up to throw on a summer dress and maybe a bathing suit, messy beach hair in all it's glory, and walking out the door in my flip flops. Tons of friends and stuff to do, always an air of chill happiness and living on vacation. It was a simple, social and active outdoor life that I had fallen in love with 20 years before and never stopped. San Francisco, I miss you for being the haven of finally finding my people. Other creatives, weirdos, intellectuals and big thinkers. Where it was good to be unique, different, individual and a dreamer. Felton, I miss you for the peace of the redwoods that could center my inner chaos more than anywhere else in the world. You gave me the magic of fairy dust and dreams of writers. Burning Man, you gave me a different kind of magic in the dust. A pilgrimage to the the healing I've needed my whole life. A home of confidence, foundation and the hope of how good a society can be. You gave me spirituality and a haven that had only lived in the dreams of a different world.