Home
San Diego, CA
My sandals crunch into the familiar dryness of the earth. I walk towards the golden light, soon to be blazing red. Unbothered by the unkempt weeds and scratchy bushes, I march ahead. I know there are snakes, but they don’t bother us, and I’m not afraid. San Diego can be a pretty wild place and I’ve had my share of encounters with our animal counterparts (rattlesnakes, coyotes, tarantulas, lizards, soliciting solar panel salespeople, you name it), but if anything that only makes me appreciate my hometown more. I always watch the sunset from the same spot, my spot, and there are many reasons I keep coming back.
It always surprised me how few people take advantage of this place. The view is glorious; just replace rolling mountains and deep blue oceans with sprawling suburbia and overcrowded roads. The thing is though, that’s home. That’s my San Diego. I’ve seen some amazing sunsets here, many of which stop time altogether. Mostly, I come here for the silence and comfort of my own thoughts. My father would come here too, also staring into the distance in silence, contemplating. We would stand there together until the sun bled out its final rays, and walk hand in hand back home for dinner.
The day before I left for college (across the country in New York), I came to my spot and cried. I couldn’t process that I was leaving home, despite wanting to for so long. My relationship with San Diego has always been a difficult one. As a teenager, I yearned to be anywhere else, constantly restless. It was going away that made me appreciate my home so much more. The chaos of college life would dissipate as soon as my flight landed, and I almost always breathed a giant sigh of relief. I loved nothing more than coming back to my spot and reflecting on all that had changed (and also all that hadn’t).
Arms crossed, brows furrowed, I watch, lost in thought. Today, an Indian family with two young children ventured to my spot, just a few feet away from me. I smiled at them before returning my gaze to the horizon. “You know son, that’s your school down there!” the father says in Tamil. I chuckle silently. That was my school too, over a decade ago. As they stand there, pointing out major roads and little landmarks, it dawns on me that I’ve completed a whole cycle here. I’ve now graduated college, and I’ll be moving to a new city in just two months.
Observing this new family speak with so much excitement about their new home fills me with a surge of excitement for my soon-to-be old one. Here, I was born. I grew I learned I played I cried
I lost, I grieved.
I persevered.
I don’t give enough credit to my hometown, really. Somehow it found ways to offer me love when I had none left to give. And now, there is something so beautiful about these young families and their children who are just beginning to call this city their home. I watch as they guide their baby daughter up the rocky trail, wondering if she’ll grow to love this place and stare at sunsets from the same old spot.
All my life I constantly tried to find ways to escape from here. San Diego never lived up to my unrealistic expectations, and I missed what was sitting right in front of me. It took loss, leaving, and lockdown to shed the old associations I held onto. My city is beautiful, and there is no other place where I experienced this many meaningful changes and huge transitions. Now I can proudly call it my hometown and rave endlessly about the sunsets from my spot.
I don’t need to run anywhere else. This place is perfect, and I am home.
