LA, I'm breaking up with you

It's not me, it's you.

We've had a pretty good go, all these years, but it's over, and there's nothing either of us can do anymore.

The first four years, when I was at Caltech, were magic: sun and rain and palm trees and amazing food and Disneyland. I'll never forget that you gave me Donut Man and real Chinese food and Tommy's.  I'll always love you for USC football and Dodgers baseball, and Vin Scully in my living room every night.  Those college years gave me independence and freeway driving skills and a reason to get my first cell phone.

I took a five year break for graduate school, but my heart never left you.  I cried night after night when I recognized the places from my heart on the TV and in the movies.  I read entertainment gossip sites like a fiend.  I learned to make Tommy's chili for my husband.  I dreamed of the day my exile would be ended and I would come home to you, the sun, and the sea breezes.

But when the time came, and I came home, I found that we had both changed.  I was more settled, you were more angry.  The traffic was worse, the people more fractious, and somehow everything had gotten incredibly expensive.  Oh, we tried to make it work.  We got better jobs than I could ever have dreamed.  We bought an amazing little house that fits us like a glove and surrounds us with the best you have to offer:  tall mountains, soft breezes, the bounty of citrus.  We tried.

In the end, it was just too much.  It's an hour and a half each way (or more) in bad traffic.  Traffic causes me stress and eats gas.  Which is Freaking Expensive.  More so here than anywhere else.  And if I get there, I can't park.  Forget public transportation, that takes even longer.  What good are the mountains and beaches if I can never get there?

The truth is, I will miss you.  But we can't do this anymore.  You're like the boyfriend that all the other girls are secretly jealous of, but only because they don't know that in private you are a cruel bastard.

I wish you all the best, you know, I really do.  And yeah, I may come back again.  But for now, we're through, and I'm looking forward to a whole new way of life.

Kisses,

CTG