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| Cailin at Tolay Lake Family Farm Chores Day |
And I love living in Southern California. I love being near the Cabrillo Aquarium, going whale watching year round, being near two really great churches, and living so close to the coast that I can open my windows some day and smell the ocean.
Living down here was a strategic move. There were two components to this move. First, I'd be able to return to the doctors I had a few years ago that I really had faith in. That hasn't quite turned out to be the case. Second, soon Ellen and Carlos would be moving to the Los Angeles area, and I'd have family support as I aged. And that isn't happening either.
I've been agonizing over how this is going to work, especially when I needed help with day to day living when I had a knee injury and a planned hand surgery. Long term, things looked pretty bleak. Most of my relationships were being built with other seniors... seniors who moved here to be closer to their kids.
I've always called Cailin my ray of sunshine. I looked to her for the fun stuff: for going on hikes and whale watches and festivals. I never really thought of her as the one to take care of the hard stuff, but being with her while we worked to take care of things after Ellen's death has made me look at her in a new light. And I think she's seeing me a little differently these days as well.
I'd always counted on Ellen to be my support when I aged. I never thought that it would fall to Cailin. I never considered she might be ready, or want to take that on, even though she joked about it from time to time.
Today we finally had the talk. She had been talking with Patrick about it before this, which I didn't expect. And she seems genuinely happy for us to be in the same place again, which is now literally moving me to tears.
and, come spring, back to Petaluma.
Reminds me of giving up my life on Catalina to move back overtown. I fought that decision and hung on as long as I could but there was a point I had to accept that as much as I loved that island it was time to go. I had given Avalon everything I had but it was only taking and not giving anything back - financially, emotionally, and years of my life. And if Avalon didn't work out I damn sure wasn't going to start over at the West End or one of the camps, that'd be much worse. My mother had long told me that she would help me go, but she wouldn't help me stay so I took her up on her offer and started the process of extracting myself from a home of 12 years and shifting myself, two cats, and a shitload of boxes across the channel to Orange County. But it was a damn good decision - no regrets.
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