san luis obispo.

it will always be my home.

i have never felt at home anywhere until i came here. we moved about 20 times by the time i was 16 so everywhere i went i knew i'd be leaving soon. every time i would move when i was younger i never really cared because i was usually just glad to get away from that middle place i was in. i always wanted to see if the next place was going to feel like home. dont get me wrong, i'm really really crazy excited to leave, because for me 8 years is way too long... but now i know that no matter how far away i go or for how long san luis will always have my heart. there aren't words to describe what this place means to me.

when i came here so long ago i was broken, depressed, alone. i had a small lifetime of pain behind me and nothing to look forward to. i physically ached with sadness. i met a few great people and my life was forever changed. there could never be anything to compare to those first months i spent here and the people that loved me so dearly, that loved me out of my loneliness. cameron, jo, seth, carissa, brook, jeremy. i found true love here, i found hope, i found a place i belonged. i've learned how to be friends with people for more than a year, which probably sounds easy to most, but was a very hard thing for me to understand. i grew up here, i got married here, i had my babies here. but as it has come closer to the time for us to move, the less i have felt like i belong... i dont fit here anymore. maybe i will again, maybe i never will but this will always be my home. i love that about san luis and i love that there are so many like me, friends and strangers who come in and out of this wonderful place. i love how there are the people from what i think of as 'old san luis' who you dont see for years and then suddenly they reappear and you are thrust back into the memories of that time. the past two weeks i have been lucky enough to see so many of the old stranger friends that i haven't seen in so long... and i got to see a little bit of that old place come back to life in my heart right before i leave. it was such a comfort to see their familiar faces and hear their hellos and well wishes, to know that they see me, steady, sure to be in this place. i am expected to be here. i love that you can see a stranger some hundreds of times in barnes noble over 8 years and although you never talk, you are somehow friends and you both know it. i love that that stranger will be sad to see me go. we have become the steady here, the people who you can always count on being downtown. now i leave that group and i become one of the many travelers who leave and come back. to think that this used to be the norm for me, to go to a new place and start out clean, not knowing anyone there, not knowing the town or its history, not knowing the travelers you know you will always see, not knowing the people who make up the foundation of that town, not knowing the homeless by their names... its strange once you find your place, your home. i never thought i would have a home i never thought i would feel this way. i'm so thankful i do and i'm so thankful to know that i can leave and san luis wont forget me. i have made my print in this town and will always be remembered, and will always come back.