I recently spent the weekend in Southern California (specifically, Irvine) with some distant cousins whom I would never had became close to, had my grandparents asked me to come down and meet them 5 years ago. Since last summer, I have been visiting them every two or three months to experience the area, and have some good bonding experiences.
My immediate family is more or less majority of “home-bodies,” in that, we don’t leave the county too often. From the ownership of a driver’s license and a car, I have been all over the state, to the tune of an average of 20,000 miles a year, about 8,000 over the average driver. For my age, that is an anomaly, but a badge I wear proudly as a seasoned driver.
Every time I have spent time in Orange County, where my cousins reside, I am left with a longing to return, and quite possibly settle here for a few years, maybe a lifetime. Personally, I have always told myself I could live anywhere: between rural Kansas (that could be a small struggle for this active, politically-moderate extrovert), and Manhattan, New York. But, Orange County always left me with a sense of awe that many other places didn’t.
The pristine beaches, the wide parkways traversing through canyons and rolling hills, the high-rises of Irvine, and the beach towns that dot Pacific Coast Highway from Seal Beach to Dana Point, all with a different charm from one to the other. To be frank, vastly different than Fresno County where you (the reader) most likely call home. Not better or worse, but different.
My cousin, in her 30s and married with two small children, told me her story of how she ended down here. Growing up in a small town next to San Francisco, the temperatures rarely exceeding 50s, she found herself ready for something new. She packed her bags and moved to Southern California looking for a different and exciting phase of life. After moving into an apartment complex (where she met her soon-to-be spouse) in Costa Mesa and working a few jobs, she ended up starting her own business at home doing consulting with the many businesses in Orange County.
With little to no family in the area, setting roots in a brand new locale is challenging, but can be incredibly rewarding nonetheless. Her story inspires me to leave my own nest. I love the nest – I have many great benefits of a village that I am known in, I have immediate and extended family here that I would be without elsewhere; but there is a part of me that would regret never leaving this place, even if it never ended up being Orange County.
Knowing I have 2.75 more semesters of undergrad, and a Master’s degree at the bare minimum before I can leave, means that I still have work today before I can post that picture of me on Facebook with my loaded-up SUV, ready to roll down Highway 99. We have to be ready for such a drastic change, and have the skills to tackle problems down the way.
Wherever I end up, I will still always hold a piece of me that loves where I came from, and the hundreds of people that shaped me to who I am. Just because I left means I am ungrateful, unsatisfied, or hold a negative regard. If the world is a canvas to paint a new picture, where will your brushstroke begin?
