So, what now?
On ch-ch-ch-changes and signs from the universe
“Happiness is a direction, not a place.”
Sydney J. Harris
It snowed today.
It’s not supposed to snow in Gualala, but that’s okay because I’m not in Gualala. I’m in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
I live here now.
Like falling asleep, like falling in love, it happened slowly, then all at once.
There were wants and needs—wanting to be closer to family, needing to be closer to healthcare.
It became harder to see the next phase of our life in our small, shared home, even with ten acres.
Maybe you could read between the lines. The commitment was real, but so was the uncertainty.
The East Coast has always been a center of gravity for my husband and I.
For years, it was strong enough to keep us in its orbit from afar, like satellites roving around at a safe distance. We swung back and forth for visits, extending business trips and creating jam-packed schedules.
More years passed. Babies were born. Everyone aged. The gravitational pull grew.
No one questions moving to be closer to family. It’s practical. It makes sense.
But despite feeling real clarity about heading home, I also felt resistance. To what? To becoming boring, to growing older, to going backwards?
To changing everything I thought I knew about myself.
Not to mention, we didn’t have anywhere specific to go. Our familial network stretches from Florida to Maine.
Some parents started snowbird-ing. Our siblings scattered. Our friends sprawled to the suburbs. Some even moved abroad.
And despite remote work grating on me personally, we were still technically untethered from the office.
The incredible privilege and freedom of mobility came with the paradox of choice.
It was hard to picture our future with a Zillow search that spanned half the entire eastern seaboard.
So, I did what any confused Millennial does: I googled “Best Place To Live on the East Coast.” I asked ChatGPT where to live.
My husband even discovered a website called Smappen for regional sales people. We used it to map the driving distance between various family members, cities, and airports.
There’s a limit to how much you can learn about a place on the internet. At some point you just have to go.
In December, we were back East for the holidays, spending some time in Vermont before a family reunion.
A new Zillow rental listing popped up, fully and artfully furnished. The owners were creatives, spending a year abroad. A house with a fenced-in yard. Twice the bedrooms and square footage as anywhere we had lived before. Under an hour from Boston, with a commuter rail station.
In Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Newburyport sounds like the name of a New England storybook town. It looks like one, too. My husband is from the greater Boston area, but neither of us had been there before.
We decided on a whim to go see it—the house and the town. We found all the essentials: an ice cream place, a bagel place, and a bookstore, all charming.
Strolling around, it was like out of a movie. People held doors open. Cars stopped to let us walk, even when they had the green light.
The house itself had a wood burning stove and a view of the river. Newburyport sits at the mouth of the Merrimack River.
Like Gualala, where the river meets the sea, just a different river and a different sea.
Once the seed was planted, I felt ready to go, but not ready to leave.
In case you missed it, I love Gualala!
I love hunting chanterelles in the backyard. I love the drama of the trees and their massive root systems. I love finding awe in a smaller unit of community. I love daydreaming on the drive in.
Even more bittersweet than leaving Gualala was leaving California. For almost 10 years, I spent weekdays believing ideas could change the world and weekends immersed in the most majestic nature.
I camped in National Parks, walked to the beach while living in a city, and ate burritos for lunch, Burmese for dinner. I learned to ski powder, attended woo woo retreats, and never bought an umbrella.
I sent my family screenshots of the temperature in February and got pictures of ice skating and gas prices back.
I’d also call my mom after work, forgetting it was 10pm her time. She’d pretend she wasn’t lying in bed in the dark, but I could tell.
Eventually, TikTok started serving me videos with the hashtag #longdistancedaughter.
They featured young women who had left home for adventurous lives in beautiful places, looking wistfully out a window, set to the Noah Kahan lyrics, “We ain't angry at you, love. You're the greatest thing we've lost.”
Was it the algorithm or the universe? Does it matter?
Like the beginning of the end of any relationship, I found myself wondering—what happened to Gualala, to California? Was it a failure of will? A miscalculation of desires?
Why am I uprooting myself, again?
What will I tell people when they ask how long are you going to stay?
I ask these innocuous questions, too. Sometimes I’m actually curious and sometimes I’m just making conversation.
“Oh, is this your forever home?”
And sometimes, when I’m sitting in the swirl of my own thoughts and feelings, I seek out certainty in other people’s lives, as if that will help me find certainty in my own. As if anyone’s life goes according to plan.
“But, how did you know? Like know, know?”
Most people make decisions based on practicality—driving distances, mortgage rates, and good schools.
When it comes to big life decisions, I tend to lean more… romantic. How does this decision feel in my bones? Have there been signs from the universe?
Despite it being the truth, I was almost embarrassed to tell people we were leaving, like it was an admission of defeat.
“Actually, we’re moving back East to be closer to family.”
But once I started saying it out loud, the easier it came.
“That makes total sense.”
“That’s actually really beautiful.”
“It’s so cool how you guys are always exploring new places.”
Making a practical decision doesn’t have to be unromantic, even if it means leaving a very romantic life.
And starting over is romantic, too. Right?
A few weeks before we left Gualala, one of my friends opened a preschool, The Forager School there.
It was the kind of place I’d want to send my future kids, the kind of place that I would have been excited to live near.
I stopped by for a visit and started chatting with the teacher. She had just moved back home, too. She grew up in Gualala and went to college in the Bay Area.
After graduating with a Master’s in Education, she stumbled upon an Indeed job listing for a Preschool Director in her tiny hometown. She decided it was a sign from the universe.
Describing the curriculum, she said, “it’s really about the kids being able to learn how to self regulate with nature.”
Gualala taught me that, too.
Part of me wanted that preschool to be a sign from the universe, to stay, to make it work. But I felt in my bones that even if it was a sign, it was from a parallel universe—a universe where I was from a different place and was a different person.
Maybe it’s okay to stay somewhere not “for good,” but “for just long enough,” long enough to make some friends and learn a thing or two.
My first weekend in Massachusetts, my sister and her husband slept over, we had brunch with my cousins, and afternoon tea with my father-in-law.
Within days, I was woven snugly back in, like there had been a me-shaped hole just waiting to be filled.
Of course, it’s not perfect.
My skin is dry from the cold. It is an eternal struggle to take a winter coat off in the driver’s seat. We have to find new doctors and new dog sitters and new friends.
I probably can’t write as whimsically about driving on I-95 listening to Boston sports radio. (Though, stay tuned!)
But we made it to the other side of change. The resistance has lifted. We are committing to this choice, surrendering to this season.
We’re still in the honeymoon phase—full of hope and who knows. We’re enjoying the conveniences of the suburbs and exploring the empty beaches.
How long will we stay? Where will we go next?
What will this place teach us?
Right outside our front door, a pair of mourning doves have made their home.
One usually sits roosting on the nest while the other is out gathering tiny sticks.
“Morning, dove!” I say, as I step out into the day.
I actually didn’t know it was “mourning,” and not “morning” until right now, looking it up.
Mourning, morning. Ends and beginnings. One and the same.
Earlier this week, the doves’ eggs hatched.
“Morning, doves!”
Universe, is that you?
Long distance daughter brought tears to my eyes. Welcome back East. Newburyport is magical!
This was a beautiful read. Thank you for sharing your soul with us, and best of luck as you settle into your new home 💫