Endings / Beginnings

My time in San Diego is drawing to a close. Approximately T-minus 6 hours.

When I first came here I thought it was a nice place and the place is picturesque when you get to the coast. In all the years I’ve spent in California I’d spent very little time in San Diego and that was always as a visitor.

I came here with high hopes of restarting a career and making something of the opportunity. 

I found out this area is a hard place to meet people and that the job market is not the best. In that it’s much like the rest of California but San Diego has something else. It’s hard to put into words, its like there’s a standoffish attitude. Perhaps it’s because of the strong military presence. Perhaps it’s something else entirely. The practical reality is that it’s difficult to get to know anyone because everyone is on the move, myself included.

This city feels like everyone is just passing through. No one, it seems wants to make attachments of any kind. One of the things that caught my attention was how many people park nose out.

You’ll see this in shopping malls, businesses, and apartment parking. It’s as if everyone is preparing to leave, even when they’re at home. The shopping malls and businesses amazed me, people will back in to parking spots regardless of how many other people they slow down in the process.

I’ve seen traffic jams caused by person after person backing into spots at their place of work. They’re completely oblivious to the fact that their actions were causing the problem. At work I’ve heard people say they didn’t understand why there was a jam up at the entrance to the parking lot every morning. 

It speaks to a blindness about consequences of your actions. It’s a delusion shared by more than a few people here.

While I will miss having my own space. I won’t miss San Diego. There are nice people here, and there are some damn good people here, they’re very hard to find, but they’re good people.

So I have mixed emotions about leaving here only because I liked living on my own.

I won’t miss the crowds, traffic, noise, or Comic con… Not one little bit.

It’s been a couple of weeks since the layoff. I’m still tired as hell and occasionally a little blue, there’s a feeling that I and my colleagues were all used and then thrown away. I’m not looking forward to sweating over finding a new job full time.

But this “Ending” is a “Beginning” too.

That’s what I’m reminding myself of as I box the last of my stuff here.

I’m putting things into boxes and storage as neatly as possible with the intent that I’ll begin again, somewhere else.

Call it hope.

I do know that, long distance commutes are out of the question in Southern California. They used to be possible but those days are long gone. Where ever I end up working, I’ll probably have a small apartment nearby. Ideally, I’ll have an actual home that I’m earning equity on. But houses nearer the working centers of any city in this country, much more-so in the state of California, are beyond expensive for what you get.

I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I have at least a little hope.

I’m planning to take some time for myself, maybe a week or two where I can just turn my brain off, have a little fun and relax. I need to go walkabout and see some things I either haven’t seen before or revisit some things or places that I’ve enjoyed in the past.

Then I’ll tackle the business of looking for a new job, cleaning up around the house and working toward defining and building a future that I want.

I know it’s all up to me, but I question if I have the strength at this age to pull off reinventing myself and defining the future I want.

We’ll see.