I still love California so much

Why do I even use the word “still”?

You can’t unlove this vast and beautiful place. Yes, it’s expensive and I’m struggling to maintain my large family’s complicated life arrangements across the country’s two opposing coasts, but I’m here for now. Out of my eleven years in the US, I spent five in the Bay Area and five in Orange County, Southern California. I prefer Southern California, but I love it all — this huge and versatile world, whose beauty enchants and keeps me healthy, both mentally and physically.

Actually, the job I started earlier this year is located in Orange County. I found it by coincidence, and I’m not required to be in the office, but it helps to be close to the founder and the CEO, who lives just a mile away from me. We go to local meetings together and have recently traveled several times to LA for conferences. So maybe I’m still here not just because of my romantic attachment to the state. Also, my youngest son goes to school here. Public schools are good where we live.

It sounds like I’m rationalizing my attachment to California. Well, yes — I am afraid of being irrational and selfish. I worry about sounding spoiled by referring to California’s weather and nature, which I get to enjoy every day in the most intimate of ways when I go for my runs.

But is it wrong to enjoy the place whose spirit is so fitting for my character? I love running and consider myself creative. I like diversity — a buzzword, I know — but in California, I feel in my territory…