Two years! It's hard to imagine that I could be a part of anything in San Diego that's been two years long, because sometimes it feels like I just moved here. Sometimes it feels like I've been here forever. Over time, I have felt a lot of my past lives in NYC and Connecticut becoming very, very unfamiliar, like something I read in a book once instead of my actual history. This isn't a bad thing. I can say pretty confidently that I was never truly happy in those places. In fact, most of the time I was quite the opposite. Then I came to San Diego for vacation, and then a two month stay, and then a weekend trip and every time I was here I knew: San Diego is home.
And you know what they say? Home is where the heart is. Almost everything that I love about my life (including and especially the love of my life), I found in this beautiful city: Ryan, my dogs, my friends, my job (most days, haha), my house. I fell in love with running again here, I found bikram, I regained my confidence, I started writing again, at least in the form of this blog. All the parts of myself that I thought got beaten out of me by Manhattan and toxic relationships and bad memories and the challenges of my writing program.... they took a while to fix and restore but I feel like I did it. I feel like me, like the person I've always known I am supposed to be, for the first time. Oh yeah and me, by the way, is now one of those annoying people who tells you that you have to be able to love yourself before you can love someone else.
Another cheesy saying that I can't believe comes out of my mouth these days (and trust me, there's a few more coming)? I had loved people before but I had never even come close to being in love with someone until we were together. The exact moment that I realized I was in love with Ryan is still crystal clear to me and it makes me smile every time. All these people who had been telling me all my life "When you meet the right person, you'll know" were actually not full of it. I met an amazing, hilarious, intelligent, kind, patient, authentic, super hot guy who I just absolutely love the crap out of. To think, me sitting here in San Diego, saying this.... if I had told my New York self this, she would have laughed in my face.
We celebrated our two year anniversary last week on October 1st, with a little picnic out on one of the secret beaches on Coronado. We sat on a blanket on the beach on the bay and watched the skyline lights come on and drank wine and ate cheese and talked about this pretty city of ours. It was a perfect night, as are so many of the nights I get to spend with this guy, whether we're out with friends or just sitting at home with the dogs. I'm grateful to have spent these past two years with this man and so excited about the future.
When I think about how fast time has flown these past couple of years and yet how I can't remember life without Ryan, I can't even fathom what I would be missing out on right now if I hadn't worked hard to let go of my negative, pessimistic habits and become the me that I knew could exist. You know how it goes... add sun and water and it will grow. ;)
