Moving on

Three years. A moment. An eternity. That’s how long I’ve been gone. It’s how long I’ve been here. It’s when my life ended. It’s when it began. It was the saddest day I have ever lived through. 

I knew, we knew, that leaving was the best and only way forward. But it was so hard. To leave everyone and everything behind. 

The unknown is always a little scary. A new place. A new home. A new life. 

When I was in high school, I used to daydream about moving away. Going to a school where nobody knew me. Where I could reinvent myself as someone different. Someone smarter, cooler, more fun than the same kids I had known all my life knew me to be. I’d fantasize about how the kids at my new school would see me as the mysterious new girl and I’d suddenly become popular and interesting. And then I’d stop daydreaming and head off to field hockey practice with the friends I’d had since middle school. 

It’s an entirely different experience to run away from home when you’re an adult. Leaving your family, lifelong friends, and your hometown. Instead of a fun new adventure, it feels debilitating. Terrifying. Heartbreaking. 

It’s very different making friends when you’re a grown up. You’re not in a classroom or dorm room or on a sports team with a whole group of people your age. People who are just as awkward and goofy and adolescent as you. You don’t automatically have things in common like the awful chemistry teacher or the hatred of 500M swims. No, when you’re an adult, you have to start over with people who are much more discerning than, “Oh, you like All My Children? I like All My Children! Let’s be best friends!” Oh, sure, there are Mean Girls and assholes when you’re a kid, but there’s so much density of other kids, you can find your group much more easily. 

As an adult, you have to navigate already-formed friend groups, and judgmental shrews, and people whose politics don’t align with yours. You have to have much more in common than an afternoon soap opera to find common ground and forge a friendship. And, when you move cross country, you also need to navigate a new place and new norms. Everything is different. Maybe even a little weird. 

The desert is definitely one of those weird places. First of all, everything looks like it belongs in a Dr. Seuss book. There are plants that you’ve never seen before. Lizards and roadrunners and the biggest flying roaches you’ve ever seen in your life. Even the rain smells different here; pungent, strong, kind of warmly sour. Of course, there was no rain when we landed in Palm Springs three years ago. It was 123 degrees. 

It’s a weird feeling to get off a plane, to be “home” and to know nobody. To have nobody expecting you. I’ve never felt quite so desperate as I did the day we stepped into the sun and heat and yawning loneliness of this new place. 

When we moved, we left everything behind. Literally. We got on the plane with the clothes on our backs, a few necessary prescriptions in my purse, our phones, and each other. We hadn’t yet rented anywhere, so we didn’t even have a home. We had a hotel room and the heat. 

Sometimes, I still can’t believe we did it. I look back, three years later, and I remember not just the sadness and loneliness, but also the fear. I wondered how we would ever meet anyone. I was working from home (hotel room). We didn’t know a soul. And the average age in Palm Springs was 59 -- slightly more senior than ourselves. I had a lot of worries about the move. But I was most worried about meeting people. As it turned out, that was the easy part. Finding somewhere to live has proved more challenging. 

Over the years, we have spent a lot of time looking at places to live. And the one thing I’ve learned is that most people -- a vast majority -- do not keep the kind of house that I would like to live in. We have seen homes with dirty dishes in the sink and on the counter, homes with unmade beds, homes with mold growing in the shower, homes that smelled of cat pee. We’ve seen homes that haven’t had so much as a washer in the faucet replaced since 1973. We even saw one apartment that can only be described as needing an exorcism. The carpet looked like it had once been that neutral shade of industrial beige, but it had become a shade which could only be described as mud (and that’s being kind). From the floor to about three feet off the ground, the walls were covered in black and red marker scribbles. Every wall. The bathrooms were saturated with a layer of nondescript black grime. And the agent who was showing it to us said, nonchalantly and without the least bit of shame, “Obviously, it needs to be painted.” Obviously. 

We saw one house that would have made Ron Jeremy proud. It was incredibly dated, with all brass fixtures and large, outdated track lighting. It had Pepto Bismol pink carpet. Every room had mirrored walls. But the pièce de résistance was the hot tub at the foot of the bed. I know you probably think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. It wasn’t a hot tub in the bathroom. No. It was to the right of the bed, right there in the bedroom -- surrounded by the Pepto carpet, with Pepto carpet-covered stairs leading into the tub. There were definitely porn videos shot there at some point.

There was another house that had a jungle motif. Every room had a different animal print. Even the dishes in the cabinets were animal print. But the best part was the life-sized menagerie of stuffed animals. There were lions and tigers and bears...oh my! They were huge, and they were everywhere. Not real animals that had been taxidermied, but probably-very-expensive plush toys. There was also a fake palm tree. I don’t mean a potted palm like you’d find in a doctor’s office. No, this was an eight-foot-tall palm tree. If there had been a second one, you could’ve strung a hammock between them. It would’ve been like living in the jungle. 

But I think the most ridiculous house-hunting experience was the day we stumbled upon squatters. The realtor had taken us to several places already that day, and we were nearly finished. We pulled up to a cute little house. Our realtor was giving us the details as he accessed the lockbox to get the keys. He knocked on the door as he was opening it. And we walked into. . . a houseful of hungover kids in pajamas and various other stages of undress. The house smelled of hotdogs (which were still in a pan on the stove) and marijuana. Dirty dishes, towels, and clothes were strewn everywhere. We slowly backed out, sheepishly, as one of the young women languishing on the couch stirred and looked at us saying, “It’s okay, you can look around.” But we were pretty sure we’d seen enough. Needless to say, we didn’t rent that place (or any of the others detailed here). 

We’ve moved around quite a bit since coming here. But we’ve been fortunate enough that, despite our challenges finding a dwelling, that feeling of fear and loneliness we once carried across the country as our only baggage has begun to dissipate. Sitting here, this day, three years later, I can remember that feeling of loss, but I’m no longer consumed by it. I still have my longing for D.C., but as I look out my window at the weird plants and blue skies (from my air conditioned comfort, on this 110-degree day), I know this wasn’t just the right decision, but it was a good one. And I’m glad, in this particular moment, to be here.