Reality is beginning to set in. After more than eight years
living in my home in Fair Oaks, Calif. and about 10 years living in the
Sacramento area, I am on my way to a new home in Baton Rouge. While the actual
traveling and physical moving does not begin for another three weeks or so, and
although I am still residing in my house, most of my stuff is either packed,
tossed out, moved to storage or in some process of becoming boxed, trash or
stored. Most of my stuff will not be moving with me, but eventually it, too,
will find a new home. I just do not know where it will be yet. But for the next
two years at least, I will be calling Baton Rouge my home.
Those who know my story might say this is old news. After
all, haven’t I been living in Baton Rouge since the fall of 2011? The short
answer is yes, but to it one must add the ubiquitous “but:” But I have not only
maintained my home in California, I have also maintained my residency
here. My car and motorcycle have California plates, I am registered to vote in California
and my driver’s license is issued by the state of California. I could do all
that because my permanent address was the home I am now vacating and preparing
for new (and my first ever) tenants. Furthermore, where I lived for the past
four semesters in Baton Rouge could never be called a home. They call it
“Northgate Apartments,” but what it amounted to was just a step – a small step
- above dormitory living. And finally, I went back to California for virtually
every single break in school, including the Mardi Gras break in my first year
at LSU (for Mardi Gras this year I brought part of home to Louisiana – a
different story for a different time). The long and the short of it is that I
never really left California.
In three weeks I will move away from my home state for the
first time in my life. Although I hope to return not just to California, but somewhere
near Sacramento after earning my Ph.D., there is no way to know if or when that
will happen. To say this move is a semi-permanent one it not only true in the
short term, it is also an open question in the long term as well. My anchors
are all gone. Nothing is holding me here. My boys are grown and out living
their lives. My education at California State University, Sacramento maxed out
at an MA degree and my short-lived marriage (along with the kids that came with
it) is now all but history. I am 50 years old and I have not experience this
sort of freedom for more than 25 years. And while I have many dear friends
here, they will remain dear friends no matter where I live. Of course I will
return to visit often, but I will not be sleeping in my house – someone else
will be paying me for that right.
People move all the time and many have moved more often and
over greater distances than I have. Some move their entire families in search
of greener pastures. While I have uprooted my own family on numerous occasions,
we never moved very far, always staying in Northern California. However, this move
is all new for me. It is exciting, but certainly not what I had planned. Indeed,
not much in the past ten years has been. Opportunity has knocked and I have answered the door. Had I known the magnitude of the commitment and the
work involved, had I known the pitfalls that lay ahead, I never would have taken
that first step. All of it, the good, the bad and the ugly have played a
pivotal role in placing me in this position. I can safely say that had I known
what the future held, I would have stayed where I was – comfortably stagnant. A
dynamic life does not come without its share of risk, but the risks I am taking
today are a far cry from those I took in my earlier years. Some of those nearly
killed me.
When I moved to Sacramento, I did not have any intention of
staying. I did not like the geography or the weather and I didn’t really know
anyone. Now I not only know many, some of them are among the closest friends I
have ever had. And I have grown to like Sacramento weather and geography as
well, although I am still not much for the city or urban life. Since I have spent
more of the past two years in Baton Rouge than I have in Sacramento, I have
learned to enjoy what it has to offer and I also have many acquaintances,
colleagues and few friends there. While I will probably never get fully
acclimated to the weather in the South, it will make me appreciate the weather
in California that much more when I return to visit. I have heard too many
times that life’s major disruptions create an opportunity for something better,
for growth, that painful events offer learning experiences. As much as I
acknowledge those truths, it doesn’t make it any easier when one is in the
middle of the storm. Now that the clouds are clearing, however, that is exactly
what has transpired.
So much is coming to an end - an ill-fated and short-lived
marriage, a multi-year residency in the same home, a 50-year lifetime of living
in not just the same state, but in a 200-mile radius within that state. The
things that must be done to make it all happen have been taking most of my time
this summer, but summer is quickly coming to an end. Reality is setting in.