Two Cities, One Home

When I was a kid, I had a plan. Move to San Diego, go to San Diego State for college, live near the beach, be near my aunt (RIP Uncle).
Every summer and winter my parents and I would visit, and every time we left I'd feel this almost... yearning(?) sensation that I couldn't really name yet. I just knew I belonged there.

But that didn't happen. I didn't go to college, and somewhere in the process of figuring out my actual life, San Diego started to feel like a dream I'd quietly let go of. Not on purpose... it just kind of drifted.

Then Christmas 2025, six years since I'd been, I flew out to see my aunt. And I don't know what I expected. Adventure, maybe. Confirmation that it was just my fantasy?? Instead I stepped off the plane and felt something I haven't felt in a long time. Like when you put the last piece in a puzzle almost.

So now I'm back in Nashville....... planning my exit.

The City I Grew Up In

Nashville hasn't always been bad. This city has given me a lot. My job, my apartment, some of the best people I've ever met. There's a version of my life that makes complete sense here and for a long time I was genuinely happy in it.

Part of it is the southern hospitality. I need people to understand how real it is. When someone holds a door open here or strikes up a conversation in a parking lot or checks on you when you seem off... they mean it. That warmth is not a charade, it's just real. I grew up in it and I'll always carry it with me.

But somewhere along the way Nashville stopped feeling like home and started feeling like a place I live. And lately it's started feeling like a place I have to survive.

I just exist. And some people here hate that.

Not everyone. Honestly not even most people. But enough. Enough that I notice it. Enough that I've learned to do small quiet calculations before I walk into certain spaces. Enough that when the governor decided to swap out Pride Month for "nuclear family month" I didn't even feel surprised... just tired. Small. It reminded me that my existence is still up for debate in the place I sleep every night.

That's an exhausting way to live.

What San Diego Feels Like

Nobody blinks twice at my purses out there.

I know that sounds like a small thing but it's not a small thing.

There's an entire strip of gay and lesbian bars in the Hillcrest neighborhood and on a Saturday night it's just... people. Living. Nobody performing tolerance, nobody granting permission, nobody making you feel like a guest in your own moment. You just exist and it's fine because of course it is.

That feeling is hard to describe to someone who's never had to go without it. It's not even happiness exactly. It's more like... the absence of low grade dread. The absence of doing the math before you walk into a room. I didn't realize how much energy that math was costing me until I was somewhere I didn't have to do it.

San Diego isn't perfect and I can't pretend that it is. The friendliness out there works a lot differently. In the south if someone doesn't like you, you'll know. Fast. It might be uncomfortable but it's honest. In California people can be warm on the surface in a way that takes longer to read. I'm still figuring that out. Coming from a place where politeness is basically a love language, the cali version of friendly felt almost suspicious to me at first. I'm working on recalibrating.

But I'd rather learn a new social code than shrink myself to fit the one I already know.

The Part That Makes It Hard

My mom is here. My dad. My grandma. The people who have shown up for me in every version of my life are a plane ride away in this plan, and that's real and that matters and I don't want to gloss over it.

My friends are here too. Actual good ones. The kind that took years to find.

And the world is... a lot right now. Trying to build toward something new when everything feels unstable is its own kind of anxiety. It would be easier to stay put. Comfortable and familiar and known.

But comfortable stopped feeling like enough a while ago.

I have a job I'm proud of. I'm working toward remote. San Diego is the goal, not the fantasy anymore. There's a difference and I felt it the moment I landed back there in December and remembered who I am when nobody's asking me to be less of it.

Nashville made me. San Diego is where I'm going. Both things are true and neither one cancels the other out.

I just finally know which direction I'm walking.