Holidays are very nostalgic. At least for me they are. I always seem to make it a point to either discuss or make a personal mental note to myself of what exactly it was I was doing the year before on whatever holiday it is I'm celebrating. Where I was. What I was wearing. How I was feeling. Who I was with. Who I wasn't with. The reflections are often tender, as for me, I've found myself in places quite different from one year to the next.
Last year, for example, I was hiking in the Laguna Canyon with my friend Kendal. We ended up walking a good five miles post hike to get to what I thought was the nearby beach (ha, my sense of distance can be so terrible.) I remember I took a long nap after that, and then just hung out at home by myself for the evening. Sounds sad, but it was actually quite nice. A gentle calm before the storm to come in the months after. At the time, I was getting ready to move out of my beloved college Irvine apartment into a home in Dana Point to be closer to my restaurant job where I had been recently promoted to management. It was a month filled with stress, fear, and excitement. My college era was over, and I was starting a new chapter in my Orange County adventures: The one where I was a full-time working CAREER WOMAN! I had high hopes. And at the time, I thought it was exactly what I wanted for my 24 year old.
Until I realized it wasn't.
It took a few months for that realization to show up, and then a couple more months to act on it. But ultimately it got me here. Back in Ventura. And basically, it's just crazy how much can happen and change in one year.
I have no idea what next year's Fourth of July will look like. (Or all the days leading.)
But this year's was great. My last real holiday on the West Coast and I spent it with my sister and her friends. We drank and we laughed and we ate candy. And we hopped a barbed wired fence to climb a mountain, for what was definitely the best spot to catch the fireworks show. (total rebels, I know.)
I missed my own friends in LA & OC, but hugging Ventura+my family as tightly as I am in these final hours.. well, it only seems right. I'm going to miss this little home town of mine.
And I couldn't be more proud of myself for the brave distances traveled from the last fourth to now.
I hope you all had a nice holiday as well! See you tomorrow at Blog Brunch? Say yes.
