Tis I. The one who’s five days late on her monthly blog.
But I have good reasons! I just got back yesterday from a two-week roadtrip that took me from Texas to California and back again. This month’s update will be a little shorter than normal as a result. Keep reading below to hear more!
💕 Aimee
California Roadtrip
I consider myself to be a native Texan, even though my Texan parents lived briefly in Tennessee the year I was born. Regardless, I’ve lived in the Lone Star State for most of my life.
Except for the decade when I didn’t.
I went to college in Southern California and spent almost ten years there—earning my bachelor’s degree, joining the workforce, meeting my husband, getting married. But when the cost of living started getting ridiculous, we decided to move closer to my family in Texas. That was more than a decade ago.
Though we love our new home and know we made the right choice, California has always remained an important place to us both. My husband grew up in Malibu, and I spent the first part of my adulthood in the Los Angeles area. So this summer, we decided to roadtrip to California with our ten-year-old twins. We took them to Disneyland, showed them the Pacific Ocean, visited our old stomping grounds and college campus, etc.
We got back from this trip yesterday. And man. I have a lot of complicated thoughts.
In many ways, the place I once loved is no more. The Palisades/Malibu and Altadena fires decimated so much. Driving south on PCH from Malibu to Santa Monica was heartbreaking—homes and buildings reduced to empty concrete slabs. So many beloved mom n’ pop shops and restaurants have closed. Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade was a ghost-town, with countless storefronts boarded up. My husband’s entire family has left California for other states. Hardly anyone we went to college with still lives there. Everything looked run-down and shabby—not just the buildings, but roads, trees, signs, even many of the people. Everyone we talked to who had lived there more than a decade confirmed what we were thinking: “Oh, yeah. This place has completely changed.”
And well, it’s easy to understand why. After the pandemic and those horrible fires, California’s had a rough time of it lately.
I shed some tears on this trip. Not because I love California any less or look down upon it. It will always be a special place to me, and I have no doubt it can come back from these hardships. But I cried because the California I personally knew is no more. And that’s okay. Things change and transform into something else. That’s simply part of life. But the major lesson I learned on this trip is to cherish what you have, while you still have it. It may not be there forever.
I want to visit again, perhaps next summer, so I can get to know this new place that’s rising from the ashes.
I’m still crazy in love with you, California. I’ll be back.
Changes to my Manuscript
Perhaps some of the emotion I felt during this trip was because of the manuscript I recently finished revising—which takes place in Southern California and borrows heavily from my experiences living there. Almost every place I mention in my manuscript now differs from my memory of it. Altadena, Santa Monica, Malibu, even my old Metro train lines have different names now.
So I’m faced with a choice. I could undergo another revision of my manuscript, but that feels wrong. I want to honor the memories I have of that place. So I’m toying with the idea of backdating my novel and having it take place prior to the pandemic. Back in the California I remember.
Lots of things to consider.
Forgive me for the brevity of this update. I’ll see you next month!
Featured image by Diego Jimenez on Unsplash.
