The Long Way Home

Maybe you've heard, maybe you haven't. Maybe you're excited, maybe you're confused, maybe you don't care.

The kid is moving back home.

It has been a helluva adventure out here in The Golden State, but it's time to cash in my chips and head home. Time to wake up where the Orange Blossoms grow.

There are certainly a number of emotions surrounding this decision, but overall I feel excited to get back to my old haunts and humidity. Maybe the humidity is a bit romantic at this point, but still, the thick air will no doubt feel like a warm hug from an old friend.   Trading Pacific Ocean sunsets from the desk for coming up 18 as the sun dips below the oak trees. Tourist(and vagrant) packed beaches for the unadulterated (save for an oil spill here and there) white sands of the gulf. Packed freeways for lazy mangroves. Hollywood-speak for southern drawls.

I have no idea what the next step is, but I do hope it will be as interesting as the ones I have left behind. Without question, I have learned more in the last three years than I have in any other professional setting. In addition to things related to the workplace, I have had a unique opportunity to learn about people. From audition waiting rooms, to country club members, to VCs and and interns- I have met them all. Some are great to interact and create with, some decidedly less so. But both provide life lessons, both positive and negative, which will no doubt help shape my future, whatever it may be.

While I don't know what level of success I achieved while being out here, I certainly have no regrets. I'm not going to get into details on what led to my decision to leave because I don't want anything I say to come off wrong.  It was just time. Time for me to return back from whence I came.

There are a number of things I think I'll miss, but I'm not really sure to what degree. I mean, the beach is great, but we've got that. The food is great, but we've got that. The friends are great, but I've got that too. So, maybe the thing I'll miss is the sense of adventure. I knew this wasn't home, so every day was a new challenge. I probably have enough material to write something about the adventures, so maybe that is part of my new challenge.

This is certainly one of my shorter posts, and I imagine some of my cohorts will cry "cop-out", but I'm heading home, and the rest is just for me right now.

"Well in the end we can all call a friend

well that's something I know as true.

And then a thousand years and a thousand tears

I'll come finding my original crew

cause to me throughout eternity

there's somewhere where you're welcome to go

I said it's something free that means a lot to me

when I'm with my friends I feel home"

- O.A.R