Au Revoir Pacifica

Today might be Christmas Eve, but it's also the day I move back home after 3 months living with my father's parents. I don't finish work until January 9th, but there is not a single free weekend left before the movers arrive at my folks to pack all my possessions. Thus, after the family holiday party this evening we'll load up my car, my parent's car, with all I have in the basement. And that will be it. It will likely be the last time I'll see my grandparents before I leave. Strange realization. Goodbye goodbyes.

I have loved living by the ocean these past few months. Before darkness took over the evening it was always the highlight of my day driving down from the top of the hill into Pacifica with the Pacific ocean stretching out infinitely.

No filters here, no Photoshop - it's simply perfect. 

After I received my formal offer and invite to DC, I tried to make a point to stop here in the mornings and afternoons when I got off early. Though I'm sure I'll live by other oceans, in other places, I don't want to have taken this one for granted.

Thankfully I've got one or two more ocean related excursions planned before I depart (one which might give me my fill of oceans for a long time) so today isn't really goodbye. But there is something about the beach you've been acquainted with your entire life (even when your father would yell when you got more than a few inches into the sea foam) and a city that will forever and always be associated with both sets of grandparents who lived there and memories of the brief years you lived there yourself as a child.

I'll remember the eucalyptus trees, the golf course with my Shirley Temples at the bar, the wooden playground down the street, picking flowers in the front yard for crowns, playing dress-up, doll house parts, classic movies, countless holidays. Hopefully today won't be the last one.