I have never lived more than 10 miles from an ocean, either Atlantic or Pacific, as the crow flies.  My apartment right now is the closest I’ve ever lived to an ocean—this one clocks in at only 2.9 miles away from the Pacific.  So it’s not entirely odd for me to pack up the iPod and walk down to the beach.  Yesterday, I had some errands to run on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, so I just went the extra 3 blocks to the ocean.  And I’m incredibly glad that I did, because I got there just as the sun was beginning to sink below the horizon, so the first time ever, I literally watched the entire sunset.  To see it dip below the Pacific was an added bonus—just water as far as the eye could see.  What I didn’t expect were the emotions that washed over me afterwards.  And I can basically sum it up by saying I’m suffering from Garden State Syndrome.

There’s a part in the movie where Zach Braff is telling Natalie Portman about how the house you grew up in at some point no longer is your home, and how you can become homesick for a place that doesn’t exist anymore until you start your own home with your own family.  And I have been feeling that in spades, for some unknown reason.  For me, the house that I grew up in isn’t even a place I can go inside anymore—my parents sold it three years ago and I moved them to Tucson.  I went back over a year ago… sat outside in a car and saw this house that I spent 14 years in but can’t even go on its driveway now, and the outside has even been changed so the property looks alien to me. 

As hard as it may seem to believe (because it is for me), I’ve been living in Los Angeles for almost 4 years now.  Yes, I’ve managed to build a life for myself here and it’s a pretty good one, but L.A. is not home.  That old house on a cul-de-sac in Connecticut is not home.  Boston, where I lived for 8 years, is not home.  So here I am, approaching 30 years old… and I’m homeless.  My roots have been torn up, my past is someone else’s property now.  I don’t even have the same coastline anymore.

Everclear - “Santa Monica”
Right-click and save as, please.