Not the Only One

I just got off the phone with my friend Erin, who is a very close friend from D.C., and who recently moved back to California with her now husband.

She is in D.C., for the first time since leaving. She called to tell me she was staying in the hotel above the bar/restaurant Urbana, which is where I dragged a bunch of people when it was new and where I had the first part of my 30th birthday party. Super cool place.

Anyway, we talked about what it was like to be back for the first time after leaving. Turns out, I'm not alone in the way I felt when I went back for the first time.

Erin talked about the knot of anxiety and the overwhelming feelings of nostalgia she had as she crossed the bridge into town. She wondered if life in D.C., which she also loved and was such an integral part in shaping who we are, would become distant-feeling like her time in Argentina, a country she fell in love with and that also shaped who she was when living there for a year.

She said she told her mom it was weird to be there and not be living there. Yep.

And she talked about how her life is in California now, but D.C. will always have a place in her heart. Yep again.

I was afraid the feelings I had when I went back, as real as I thought they were, were just me being overly dramatic. Many would say that was probably it, but I know now that it wasn't. I'm not the only one D.C., meant a lot to and am not alone when it comes to missing that city like crazy.

Even though I really am happy to be back in my Western home.