Los Angeles and Me

So when I determined that I wanted to head to So Cal for collage, I made up a little plan in my head. It went like this: move to So Cal for college, move to LA afterward (if I wasn't there already), spend my single, wild days in that city, then move back to the Bay Area to "settle down."

Well, of course, like most plans, it didn't work out that way.

I did indeed move to So Cal for college, and I did indeed move to LA proper afterward. But by the time I moved here, I had been dating someone for about two years, and would continue to date them for another four. So, there went my wild single days.

After we broke up, I briefly considered moving back to the Bay Area, but I had just started a new job that I enjoyed - plus I had recently visited and decided things moved a little too slowly for me at this point in my life. I had friends up there, but life would have been different from how things were going in LA.

A little over a year later, I was laid off, but by that point I was dating someone new, and so the idea was still not going to happen. It's now been about three and a half years since that point, and I'm still in LA.

Would I move back? Maybe. I've met people who were raised in LA, sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't. Something tells me it's not just they're being from LA or not that determines how I feel about them.

I do like the weather. I don't mind being hot - it's much less distracting than being cold. I don't mind the traffic - there's usually some way to get there involving the subway, still such a novel thing for me, despite having taken it for a couple years now.

I like the valley, where I live now. People come up to you in grocery stores and tell you about crackers - not because they're crazy but because they're nice and want to give you cracker advice.

Another thing, that I've discussed with my boyfriend and other people, is that in LA, things are just looser. You'll see two people at a party, and one will ask the other "what do you do?" and the other will say "surf and hang out" and that's totally valid. The first person will walk away thinking "now that guy's got it figured out." I don't need things to be that loose for myself, but I like living in such a relaxed environment.