Going Home

Could be that I am slow on the uptake, but it is just occurring to me that the Mrs. and I are moving to San Diego. The early signal that I missed is Mrs. Laz has been offered and accepted a job in San Diego and began working there about a month ago. This, coupled with the fact that we are actively looking for a house, are strong indicators that a move is in the works.

I don’t know why this moving business is sneaking up on me since it was first put out as a point of discussion a year ago. But it seemed to go from chin-scratching theory to gaining its own momentum while I wasn’t paying attention.

It’s actually an open secret that nobody in my family likes Sacramento so it should not be that big of a surprise that we have all sought to move elsewhere. I don’t want to say too much that would appear negative about Sacramento because I have plenty of friends who will continue to live here and what I may say will only accentuate the notion that I am a snob.

One thing that can be said that nobody can quarrel with is that Sacramento is hot. When it is 108 degrees, folks around here like to mention that it is a “dry heat.” Well, Hell may be a dry heat too, but it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. Give me a good ol’ fashioned “night and morning low clouds” situation in San Diego any day of the week over dry heat.

Sacramento has an eclectic population; an odd mixture of farmers, state workers and Bay Area transplants. This makes driving between tomato trucks, 1972 Fords and the occasional Hummer a very interesting and dangerous activity. Fortunately for many there is plenty of room to park their cars in their front lawns – I guess because they can’t navigate past the collection of washing machines and rusted-out refrigerators to get in their garage (assuming the garage has not be converted to a family room).

OK, I got personal, but I guess I am trying to reassure myself that the brown grass in San Diego is greener. Or, better put, denigrating my relationship with Sacramento to ease the pain of separation.

I didn’t think of this until this morning, but I have lived here longer than any other place in my life, which is really quite strange because I have never thought of it as home. I have been here for nearly 20 years but still think of myself as being raised in Michigan (first 14 years) and going through my formative years in San Diego (the next 14 years). Absent a two-year sentence in Texas and two years of breathing hot air in Washington, DC, the rest of my life my home has been here in Sacramento.

The truth about any place you live is you choose to stay because of the people you have come to be friends with. That part is just sinking in as I have been gradually saying goodbye to friends and acquaintances the past several days.

Mind you this should not shock anyone, but I am overly-sentimental about people, places and things. I remember the last few days before moving from Michigan to California where every step I took on the sidewalk I cried a bit knowing I would never step on that section of sidewalk again. It wasn’t because I had so much affection for concrete that I cried; it was more because I didn’t give in to the deceit that my parents were peddling that we would be coming back to Michigan often and that we’d see our friends whenever we liked. It doesn’t work that way and it didn’t take long to learn that Thomas Wolfe was right about going home. When we leave, time leaves with us and we never quite know what we have lost until we take a trip back and realize the distance between us and our friends. People change in small, indecipherable ways that is difficult to notice when we’re together often. But when it’s been a few years, or even months, between visits, you notice the small changes even more.

While it should be easy to be going “home” again, I know there are people and parts of Sacramento I will miss. There is one person I will miss the most and we have done a pretty good job so far of pretending we’re not heading in separate directions. You see, unlike the Boy, the Girl has no interest in coming to San Diego. While she has no great love for the oven of Sacramento, she is working here and until she finds the job she is looking for in another city, she will be too far away for my tastes. I have said a few good-byes with a kiss or hearty handshake already, but saying goodbye to Em is an impossible thought at the moment. A kiss goodbye will never be enough as I can’t picture her not sitting in our family room hogging the remote control. But we will try to say goodbye with a kiss knowing that it may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.