When “This Trip” Became Home
For years, I’ve said, “This trip to San Diego…”
I’ve never called my time in Pennsylvania a trip. When I leave California, I say I’m going home. Lately, I’ve started to realize what that language leaves out.
I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. I grew up on a horse farm, and even after I began traveling the world in my late twenties, Pennsylvania was always home. My family and longtime friends were there. I knew the roads without thinking about them.
Then I met Ryan.
He was stationed in Mechanicsburg, my hometown, when we met. A year later, the Navy sent him to San Diego for his final tour before retirement. I fell in love with him, and somewhere along the way, I fell in love with the city, too. He proposed on the beach at La Jolla Shores in December 2020. Later, we got married, and in the spring of 2022, we bought a condo.
After he retired, we had a decision to make: where would we live?
The plan had been to return to Pennsylvania. My aging parents live there, and Ryan had invested in multiple rental properties. But neither of us wanted to leave San Diego behind. So we made a life that included both places. When we were back east, we rented our SD condo to traveling healthcare professionals until it was time for us to come back to the west coast.
Nearly five years later, living on two coasts feels normal to us. What has surprised me is how much my sense of home has changed while I wasn’t paying attention.
At first, San Diego was the place I went to be with Ryan. Then it was the place we went to enjoy the beaches, the culture, the weather, and our time together.
Now I have friends at YogaBox and neighbors I can rely on. I’ve built a meaningful relationship with Saddles in Service, where I volunteer my time and have the opportunity to partner with their horses. Their work with veterans and first responders matters deeply to me, as a nurse practitioner and the wife of a retired Navy veteran.
These are no longer just things I do when I’m in San Diego. They are people and relationships I care about. Somewhere along the way, this became more than a place I kept returning to. It began to feel like home.
Leaving still takes work. Before renters arrive, I pack up our clothes, give away the food we won’t use, and clean every inch of the condo.
I wash our old Land Rover, Ralph, and cover him to protect him from the rain that finds its way through his window seals. By the time I’m done, there’s hardly any evidence that we were there.
That is part of why I’ve kept calling it a trip. Every time we leave, I prepare our home for someone else to live in.
Recently, we put the condo on the market. For thirty days, we waited. No offers came, and we decided to keep it for now. Before listing it, I thought our time in San Diego might be coming to an end. Once that possibility was in front of me, I began to see how much of a life we had created here.
I started thinking about the friends, both animal and human, I wanted more time with. The neighbors I’d miss. The horses and the work that have become part of who I am on this coast. I started asking a different question: If we stay, how do I want to show up for this life?
I want to make more time for the people I love here. I want to keep building community, rather than assuming there will always be another trip when I can get around to it. I want to be present for the life we have now, even as it continues to change.
Pennsylvania will always be home. My history is there. People I love are there. A longtime friend has opened her farm to my work with horses there, too. San Diego becoming home doesn’t take anything away from that.
I don’t need to choose which place gets the word.
The next time someone asks when we’re going to San Diego, I’m going to pay attention to my answer. I’m ready to stop calling it “this trip.”
I wonder how often our lives change before our language catches up. We keep calling something temporary because that’s how it began, even as we’ve built relationships, routines, and a sense of belonging within it.
What are you still calling temporary that has quietly become part of your life? And what might change if you allowed yourself to see it as it is now?
