Greetings from however high in the sky airplanes fly – 30,000+ feet? I don’t actually know I just walk into a tube and blindly trust engineering that I do not understand and people whom I’ve never met to get me where I am hoping to get to. 

That is what this first month out of Los Angeles has been – a big ol’ lesson in trusting (wow what a set up I am so good at writing!!). In the conversations leading up to the move, folks would ask me why I was leaving and towards the end, I lost a bit of the conviction in my reasons. I would say that I wanted to save money or that it would be easier to travel if I didn’t have to pay rent or that I wanted to get reacquainted with family and friends in Ohio as I figured out where I wanted to eventually settle down. My answer changed throughout every conversation and I found that, on some level, I was trying to convince myself that it was still a good idea to leave California. 

The day that I did leave, the weather matched my mood. I said goodbye to my little bungalow, sitting one last time in the garden of wildflowers I planted after I lost little Poppy last summer – the flowers finally blooming for the enjoyment of the next tenant. Gray mist covered the city and rain drizzled down the windows as I pulled away. It finally felt like the possibility that I carried with me when I moved to the city in 2019 was back alive within me. The possibility of new chance encounters with fate, romance, and the feeling that I am not limited to my current circumstances. 

Despite my feelings of regret I felt as I pulled away, Ohio was there welcoming me with open arms. After 10 years of living in large cities, adjusting to living on a farm has been an interesting process. The first week, I felt my body release tension I had not realized I was holding on to. Sounds of the wind rustling in the trees and birds calling to each other replaced the constant sound of Glendale drivers crashing into each other or displaying some other form of ridiculous road rage (I do not miss that $400 a month insurance payment – currently paying $93 a month with full coverage babyyy). I’ve gone from going out 5 nights a week to staying in 5 nights a week. I’d lost a spontaneity in scheduling I’d come to embrace, now having to plan my schedule around minimal social dances and hour long trips to downtown Columbus. I’ve come to miss sidewalks… and paved roads generally. My Mazda is not made for gravel.

Even with all the change, I welcome the opportunity to force myself to slow down. I’m finally taking the time to try and write all the essays and poetry that I’ve been wanting to. I’m painting more. I recently bought 10 rolls of different types of film and have plans to purchase a new 35 mm camera. And (!) I am finally taking the time to take guitar lesson with a teacher that can only be described as a midwest surfer. Where I could not make time before, I have no choice but to at this point. I’ve got a few new projects in the works, most of which may never see the light of day but give me such joy in pursuing! Creating for the sake of creating and nothing more. 

I’ve remembered that there is a lot of good that can come out of our decisions, even if we cannot quite understand why we are making them in the moment. Recently I redownloaded TikTok after a brief hiatus. As I opened my inbox to look at what my friends had sent me one video stood out to me specifically. The creator was saying that, in her experience, there are kind of two types of people in their late 20’s and early 30’s. The first camp is for people who believe that whoever they are in that moment will be whoever they are for the rest of their life. The second camp is for people who seem themselves as always evolving. People who have an agency to change the direction of their life, to change the work that they are doing, and to learn new things. While this may be a simplistic way of categorizing people, I can see this to be true too even beyond the age group that she was discussing. We are taught to have our life figured out at the age of 18, some of us often hustling through much of our 20s to get to a place of stability only to realize that this path was one of convenience and not of inspiration. I can see where I have fallen into the first camp of people the last few years. I’d resigned to the fact that the career I chose for myself when I couldn’t legally drink and was still with my high school boyfriend is not in fact a career that I can see myself maintaining for the next 20-30 years. Funny how it took me 10 years to realize this – it wasn’t even my first choice of a career path in the first place. Despite knowing this, I’ve been scared to change things up and actually figure out a path for me with all the skills I now possess. This move – this change in my life – is the best that I can do right now to figure out what I want this next part of my life to be. An attempt to figure out what endeavors inspire me and help me find meaning, without completely quitting my job and giving up all of my stability. Could I have figured this out in Los Angeles? Maybe. But why not try something drastic?

I say all of this knowing I miss LA deeply. I miss my friends and my community. I miss dancing every other day of the week. I miss 6 am paddle outs to just sit on my board in the waves for several hours because I am not actually that great of a surfer but oh how I love the ocean. I’ll be back, I am sure of it. In the meantime, I’m on a plane to Mexico City for the next four weeks. I don’t know if this space actually turn into a travel blog – the idea of updating people on a trip that feels very personal to me is not an obligation I want to place on myself. But I will continue to write – that’s what feels most important to me at the moment. Wish me all of the luck as I try to navigate a country where I know few people and just enough of the language to barely get by! As always, recommendations are more than welcome. Don’t be a stranger! 

Holly