Coralville Iowa

My last memories of Nebraska - walking out the door in the morning and inhaling deeply the warm, cow-scented air.  Also Karl Rove on Fox News at the restaurant with my morning eggs.  Joy.

Monk waiting to get the hell out of Nebraska.

Today's drive was one of the shorter ones.  I'm getting the hang of wrangling the beasts at every stop.  Needed a little Barry Manilow therapy for the last hour when I started to feel tired.  It's hard to be sleepy when you are belting out Barry tunes at the top of your lungs.  He writes the songs that makes the whole world sing.

But today also felt a little melancholy.  I've passed the halfway point.  I am really leaving California.  I have lived there for 18 years.  Eight years in San Francisco and ten years in San Diego.  

I LOVED my time in San Francisco.  I did a lot of growing up there and made lifelong friends.  I was 24 when I decided to go and jumped in a car with a couple of suitcases and drove myself out there.   No job, no money saved - just a friend's couch to crash on.  But I knew it would all work out.  And it did.

One of my favorite San Francisco memories - did the CA Aids Ride in 1997 - SF to LA in 6 days. These kids were holding up signs by the side of the road so I stopped to get a picture.

Moved to San Diego for a new job and I definitely didn't dig San Diego as much.  I can't believe I stayed there for ten years.  It is a beautiful place and I will never complain about year-round flip-flop wearing and all that blooms in the winter months.  But I was never really happy there.

So I am sad to be leaving my California dream.  Something about it always felt like home to me, especially San Francisco.  It sounds so corny and cliched, but I really did "find myself" there.  I am leaving behind a lot of things I love.  Probably forever. 

I keep leaving pieces of myself along the way on this trip.  Left my soap in Wyoming.  Tonight I realized I left a t-shirt that I like in Nebraska (karma for all my bad mouthing of that state.)  Parts of me aren't ready to go.  It is hard to say goodbye to a life you've known for so long.

But I do have a lot to look forward to.  A great family and a BFF who I haven't lived near in ages.  I get to live with them instead of just visiting their lives a couple of times a year.  Tomorrow I will enter their same time zone.  And I will stay. 

Feels good. 
Feels right. 
But still sad for what's left behind.