Going Back To Cali

I'm going going back back to Cali Cali

(I’m not actually going to Hollywood).

For the first time in a long time I’m sitting in an airport. I’m headed to California by way of Phoenix. It’s both work and pleasure. I’ll have some fun stuff to talk about when I get home tomorrow. It’s just an over-nighter, and a lot of travel for such a short spell.

The last trip I went on was when I drove my now ex-girlfriend down to Phoenix to move all of her stuff into a storage unit there. We spent one last night together at a hotel we both had fond memories and then I dropped her off at the airport and drove away. It all felt sort of unreal, a bit like a movie or something. Heartbreaking.

We used to travel a lot. It was one of the things we did best together. First short jaunts to Las Vegas or Phoenix. Our first big trip was Costa Rica. Then a roadtrip through the US and Canada. Mexico. Europe. Fiji. In late 2019 we went on an epic trip that started in Toronto before hopping over to Newfoundland then Halifax and a drive through New Brunswick to Maine where we did the leaf thing.

In late 2019, before the pandemic and before the next grueling two years, I was quite certain I would grow old with this person who I had now shared five really great years with (pocked with tragedy and struggle, but still great). In early 2020 I got sick with a respiratory illness that lasted two months and has left my lungs in rough shape ever since. I don’t know if it was COVID-19 but soon after, that’s all anyone could talk about.

The trip before The Last Trip was to Seattle, which was a weird trip that we took because we had some airline credits we wanted to use and our options were limited. Things had already gone south by this point, and I almost didn’t go. I’m glad I did—Olympic National Park is extraordinary—but it felt bittersweet. I could feel the wind in the door. We moved like ghosts in the fog. I kept losing things: My sunglasses, my nice hoodie, a credit card. Loss loomed large everywhere around us, inexplicable and unspeakable.

We had tickets to Hawaii when it all ended and I almost went anyways. One last hurrah. But I couldn’t bring myself to go.

Anyways, I wasn’t really sure what I would write when I sat down to type something out here in the airport waiting to board my first flight. I just wanted to say I was on my way to California for something fun that I’ll be writing about soon enough and all this spilled out. I’ve been doing really good, all told, but occasionally the hard reality of 7.5 years of relationship come and gone, of love gained and love lost, is a terrible weight.