Written April 25, 2025

I am back in California for the next two weeks, seeing some friends and packing up my life to drive with my dad back to Ontario, Canada at the end of the month.

Being with every inch of the beach town where it feels like my life really started. I drove out here solo in my Acura CSX filled to the brim January of 2019, arriving at a woman’s house by the ocean that I had found on Facebook. God, I am so thankful for that version of me. She knew.

She knew it was time to leave the status quo of her Toronto city life and follow the nudge towards a place and people who could hold the possibility of a version of herself she had not met but knew was in there. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to meet her in the life I was living there. I needed to crack the shell and see what was inside and what has revealed itself has been more than I could have ever imagined. I chuckle when I think back to how not scary it felt at the time. I was so clear. I made it happen. My job even asked me to stay on part-time remotely so I could train my replacement and I ended up working for them for 9 more months as I built my coaching business. Everything conspired for me in the most magical of ways.

And 6 years later, I have soaked in all that this town has had for me and it’s time to move on. To what? I am not totally sure. But for now, it is spending time in nature, close to my family. We’re all going to be close to each other for the first time in 10 years and that feels really important right now.

As I am back here to pack up and say goodbye, I feel the magic that held me for so many years. My first true love was here. My first heartbreak. My first awakening, and many more since. I experienced God here. I also suffered. I met my gifts. I got to know my heart. I met people here that will be in my life forever. It doesn’t quite feel like words can transmit the way I was shaped by the spirit of this place.

But I’m trying.

And as much as a part of me feels the weight of every tear that drips out of me as I move through my time here, my soul says feel it all. Turn towards it. Let it in. Let this place fill every cell you have with its love before you go.

And so I face the sun and breathe. I smile at the people on the street. I sit by the ocean and let the waves tell me they’re not going anywhere.

I run into my local older man friend I haven’t seen in a year, and share stories and thank yous and well wishes.

I walk the neighbourhood with open eyes and an open heart.

Saying hi to the little bee at the beach.

I hug my girlfriends and squeeze them tightly.

I let the tears come sitting on my front porch.

Because this is what it is to live.

This is what it is to say goodbye*.*