Just how did I get here?

 In college, I was a human development and family studies major, a long name that meant a little psychology, a little sociology and just a bit of anthropology.  But what it really meant was: “you can’t really do much with this unless you go to grad school.”  So for most of college, I assumed I would go straight into grad school, but early in the fall semester of my senior year, I found myself burning out.  The thought of grad school was more than I could comprehend, but the alternative of putting on a suit and interviewing for grown-up jobs was so far-fetched for me, that I couldn’t go there either.

And so I found a third alternative that seemed viable to me: I would take a year off before grad school, move to California and figure out life when I got there.  Done.  I had my plan.  Now I could enjoy my senior year.

And I did.  I had two fantastic semesters with my friends.  I took absurdly difficult classes and had intellectual discussions unlike any I can even imagine having today.  I went to bed as late or as early as I wanted to, and I regularly took two naps on Sundays, in between studying for tests and writing papers.  I had a blast on my first and last real Slope Day, in a way that I hope my children never repeat.  And I lived in the moment, grateful that I could enjoy that year for what it was, and not get bogged down in the details of my next step.

But one day that May, I graduated.  No more safety net, no more following the rules that someone else put into place.  I needed to start to think about that big next step, and make my own rules for my own life. 

At that point, I hadn’t traveled much, and had never even been farther west than Colorado.  This is the part that even I still can’t rationally understand.  I was born to parents who, to this day, have lived within 80 miles of the places in which they were born, so how this made any sense to me, I still don’t know.  I tried not to think about the fact that it was a more than a little crazy to move to a state I had never even visited, and instead I focused on just getting there.

And so I worked as much as I could that summer, probably to avoid worrying about this apparently-insane plan, but also to make some money.  I saved as much money as I could, and gratefully lived with my brother for free.  I bought my first car, and I set an arbitrary deadline: September 15.  I would head to California after the summer ended.  I made a plan with an invaluable friend, Barb, who I had come to know and love while studying during my junior year in Stockholm.  Barb had decided to move with her college friend, Kate, who had found a two-bedroom apartment in Pasadena, just outside of Los Angeles.  Thankfully, they were willing to take on a third wheel, so I had a place to call home, whenever I could get there.  

The summer ended, and September arrived, as it always does.  I began to plan my route, to pack my things, to even make a mix tape for the drive and I was fully prepared to make the journey alone.  But only a few weeks before my scheduled departure, my aunt Linda, my mom’s youngest sister, volunteered to go with me.  She couldn’t drive a stick shift, but we both knew I didn’t need help with the driving –– I needed a companion.  What a difference it made that I didn’t have to go alone.

It was a Sunday night, September 13, 1998, when I packed up my car, and readied myself for my 6:00 am departure.  And it was right before I went to sleep that my mother came in, sat on the bed next to me and said, “This isn’t going to be for just a year, is it?”  With tears in my eyes, I responded, “No.  It probably isn’t.”

So for those of you who were wondering, this was the first big step in the journey of how I came to be a mother of five, living in the small city of Claremont, 3,000 miles from the place I still call home.