Soon it will be goodbye.

I moved away from home almost four years ago. I was seventeen years old, and I was running away. I had no idea what I was doing, and the only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to be a doctor and for once my mother wouldn’t be able to stalk me around town. I was moving three hundred miles away, and couldn’t be happier about it. I was confident, I was terrified, I was ecstatic, I was nervous, I was young.

Four years later, I really feel like I’m a much different person. Without going into too much detail a lot can happen in four years. Mistakes are made, friends become family, futures are built. As my graduation date gets closer, and I have to start tying up all my loose ends and thinking about my future, for some reason it’s a lot less scary this time. In all honesty I have no real clue about what I want to be or what I want to do. I don’t know if I want to get a real job, or whether to choose Teach For America over Americorps, or whether I’m really ready to move out of California. I have no idea how I’m going to pay my loans back, or if I want to go to grad school or law school. I have no clue whether or not I want to get married or have children or if I’ll ever meet “the right person.”

But I’m not scared. I find the uncertainty is a relief.

I have had a plan for my entire life. I have been taken care of and babied my entire life. I have known at least what I was supposed to be doing my entire life. All because I have been blessed with a fantastically paranoid and neurotic mother. She has always made sure that I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in my tummy, and a future she could only dream of. And just when I think I fucked up my life, she comes in and saves me, time and time again. Because of that while I have never had even close to everything I ever wanted, and for most of my life lived off of close to nothing, I have always had certainty.

Fuck it.

This time, I’m moving to the opposite coast. Where they have real seasons, public transportation that works, and very, very different people. I’m going to leave, and I’m going to be alone. I know that I’m probably going to cry, and be homesick, and I’m going to think that life sucks for a while. But I know that it’s going to be fine.
This time, I’m not running away, I’m moving on. I’m ready to finally do something completely for myself. And I’m ready to live my own life completely for myself.

I love California. I love Los Angeles. I love my family (both blood-related and not). But I have to love me a tiny bit more. I have to leave soon. But I promise, this time, I’m going to make California miss me too.

LOVE.