the land of plenty

time and time again - visiting home makes me realize how comfortable my life would be living in cali again.

cali is the land of abundance. so much space. so much food. the produce is astoundingly cheap.

you can get FOUR ginormous grapefruits for $1?! unheard of!
you pay HOW much for your 1 bedroom apartment?
what? she's having another baby!?

in cali, i have the luxury of using as many napkins and toilet paper without thinking twice. turning on the heater is like second nature. and my family does laundry here about 3x a week.

as wonderful as all of it may sound though, i realized that NY is my new home now.  i feel somewhat displaced here as if i'm living in a past that i like to look back on fondly, but doesn't feel like "life" in the here & now.

when i think of socal, i think of my family & my pockets of friends. but i have no grander view or vision of the city of los angeles.  whereas with ny, i feel like i'm a part of something bigger (a movement of some sort), which is both intimidating & empowering all at once.

there is a certain "one-ness" about living in NY- you just feel like you're part of this living, breathing city that brings people together and propels them to new heights.  new yorkers (or i guess you can say the transplants that call themselves new yorkers) take pride in living here and see it as part of their identity (one that is chosen and willed rather than one that is predetermined). 

there is something definitely unifying about being miserably crammed in a subway car of people in contrast to being miserably isolated in your car during la traffic.  something about ny and its close corridors (and this loss of personal space) just naturally bonds people together, even in the most irritating situations. misery loves company, so they say.

"Hell-A" to "City of Angels"

It feels good to be in cali again.

Though I do feel a bit disoriented not going back to my beloved hometown - good ol' hacienda heights, I am growing fond of my parent's new residence in LA (or more specifically a small town south of Pasadena).  NY living must have really deprived me of the everyday comforts of cali life, because my family has been surprised at my exaggerated appreciation for all the closet space.

The open range of land, the clear multi-lane roads (well in the suburbs), and the kindness towards pedestrians - this all feels foreign now, but at the same time oddly wonderful.  I've done a lot of sh*t talking about LA while I was in NY: too much driving, too much sun, too little culture in this lazy, urban sprawl.  But I think I've turned my back on LA for too long (approximately 2 years), because I'm slowly starting to recognize the merits of this forsaken city.  Four different people said "good morning!" to me while I was taking a stroll with my mom today - unheard of!

I remember I once said I had no definite timeline of coming back (if ever) to Cali.  But this trip home is making me seriously reconsider.

But don't hold me to that quite yet... after all, it's only been one day.



 -edit- It's been two full days and still loving it. And one of my first thoughts were-> "this might mean I'd have to change my basketball team??" Well I don't like the Lakers, so that means my default team would be the Clippers. Okay, well Chris Paul is pretty hot and their jersey logo has cuter font. Again, don't hold me to this, my thoughts are still a bit premature.