Happy New Year, Y'all! Today is the first day of 2022 and, as with many folks, I look hopefully and gratefully onto a new year filled with opportunities, good health and great surprises.
We moved to San Antonio Texas in October of 2021, with plans and great ambitions to build our dream home on a gorgeous spread of land we purchased in Bulverde, Texas in February 2021. Our initial plans were, well, we really didn't have any initial plans or goals other than knowing that at some time in the future we would build on the land that sat peacefully across from our friends plot across the street. One conversation led to another about how rotten California was getting and how unbearable it was becoming to live in our sweet little town of Northridge. As the primary shopper and errand-runner, I saw much sooner how much our little town had changed in the course of a very short time to something I didn't recognize anymore.
The night fireworks - big fireworks - were set off behind our home at 11:00pm, startling me awake thinking that we had been bombed, I was ready to move! Fireworks had become a nightly occurrence, but never so close to home. Our trees on the back street were destroyed, burned to a crisp. Savages. But the homelessness, everywhere, was what pushed me over the edge. So many people with so much stuff littering the sidewalks just a block away from our home...and not being able to take a walk or ride to the store or outside of my little neighborhood was really not living a life I wanted to live. It was bad. When I went to our local grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk and driving by a homeless man with his shorts down to his ankles and pooping on the grass in front of anyone passing by on the busy intersection of Balboa and Devonshire, I had had enough!
California wasn't getting better, it was rapidly declining. We also realized that no matter when we began to build, we'd want to be in the general neighborhood of the build to keep an eye on things, which meant that at some time we'd need to make the move to Texas. by April, we set forth with a plan to sell our rental home, purchase a home in San Antonio, sell our home in Northridge and get the Hell out of California, which is exactly what we did and in that order!
Leaving the kids and grand-kids behind was unbearable, and something at the time I tried really hard not to think about, which was surprisingly easy with all the business, planning and details that had to be done selling, buying, and moving. All the friends and family we said our goodbyes to, it was hard. That entire time feels like fog; so much went on and so much to take care of to uproot our lives that the feeling and emotions of it all were so deeply suppressed in order to actually be able to do it!
We drove back "home" to California to spend Thanksgiving with our family and visit friends. Oh, how I loved seeing everyone, and there's nothing better than grand-girlie hugs and giggles. I really thought I'd miss California more, but not true at all. Of course, I miss the mountains and familiar places, but California hasn't been MY California for a long time. I think that was what left me feeling the saddest of all. Not until moving out of that once great state and coming back to visit did I realize just how much California had changed from what I remembered it being my entire life. A certain melancholy has hung over me since then. I know I will always have my childhood memories and keepsakes kept hidden away in my heart, but I really don't know if I ever want to go back. It's too painful.
Christmas 2021 was the first Christmas not spent with my family. Even writing that line brought a swell of tears to my eyes. Christmas 2016 was the worst. The first year without mom, who was everything and all the holidays were wrapped up around, although I didn't realize just how much until that year. Her absence and the vacuum was left behind in her wake was the deepest, most painful cut of all. Christmas 2021 was just another cut to an already deep wound that will never completely heal. But isn't that what life is all about anyway? Moving on. Change. Growth. Love. Laughter. Sadness. Pain. Rebirth. It's all of this, and it keeps on keeping on. And with that, so do I.
This move to Texas was a leap of faith. The changes in our lifestyle. The changes in our work life, and the changes in our surroundings are all a good thing. Life is ever-evolving and there is so much life to live. It's painful, scary, exhilarating, and such a gift and blessing all at once. I have no regrets. The calmness of my new daily life has been like therapy in so many ways. My soul needed to slow down. While I don't know what this year will bring, I do know what I plan to bring to this year, and I'm ready for it.
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