Saying goodbye

It wasn't easy. There were a lot of tears, but not as many as I expected for the moment. I even made him cry with my Christmas present.  I'm a little proud of that.  I have a gorgeous painting now that he did for class but he gave to me.  It's truly amazing.  My tears haven't stopped, but I didn't think they would. I know it will be worse when I get back to LA, but I'll deal with that when it happens.  

The Beach

So much is going on. Well, not so much but what is going on is quite emotional. I have a very hard time talking about it and a very easy time crying about it. Yesterday I decided that if I was going to cry (which I was) that I wanted to do it somewhere else. So I drove the 45 minutes to the beach. I spent money I shouldn't have and bought comfy shirts at Victoria's Secret. Then I bought tea and found an empty spot on the beach. I brought a notebook with me. My mind is constantly going and I was hoping that I could write some of it down. I kind of did but I also just copied some quotes I found on Pinterest. Writing those out was surprisingly therapeutic. I wrote some on my own but it's still so hard to put everything into words.

The biggest thing I wanted when I was there was to see the sunset and feel some kind of peace that everything would be ok. I kind of found that. It only lasted a minute, but it's better than nothing.

Santa Barbara

We went back to Santa Barbara yesterday. I wanted to go to the beach, mostly so I could say that I went to the beach in December. His mom was planning on taking the train down for the night but it didn't work with her schedule so instead of her coming just for the day, Flako said he would go up and get her. We stopped at a fruit stand on our way up. Obviously it's winter so there wasn't a huge variety of berries. Since I'm leaving in less than a week, I didn't want to get a lot of fruit that I knew I wouldn't eat. I got just a red pair and it was quite good.

I really like Santa Barbara. It's just absolutely gorgeous, even in the dark. We took our bikes this time and so I got to see a little more of the city. We rode from the beach up to his mom's store.  He made a lot of fun of me because I didn't want to wear my tennis shoes that I brought and I kept my boots on. He had forgotten to call his mom back to say that yes we were coming so we went there to let her know we were there.  We had to wait for her to get off work so we went and got dinner at Chipotle. After learning what real tacos are like, I no longer love Chipotle as much. Still good but not as good.  The best part of dinner was the little girl singing on the street. Her dad played guitar and she sang. She was probably seven years old and was AMAZING! She was also adorable. She really got into it. She didn't sound like a little girl at all. Flako really wanted to video her but they finished and moved on before we got a chance too. After dinner, we rode around a little more. We went by the marina and then to the community college. He had gone there for a little bit several years ago. The campus is right across from the water and just absolutely gorgeous. Just breathtaking even at night when you can't even see the water. His mom called when we were there so we rode back to the car then. While he put the bikes back on, I walked over to the beach and just listened to the waves. They sounded like thunder. I love listening to the ocean. If I had gone to the beach by myself, I probably just would have sat in the sand and watched the ocean for a long time.

We drove to Goleta, where his mom lives. It's not that far from downtown Santa Barbara. She finished packing while we talked to her husband and his mom. It's so funny/weird to hear him be called his real name. It always takes me a moment to realize who they're taking to or about.

Less than a week before I leave...my goal is to pack today and maybe only cry a little bit...

Christmas lights!

It does not feel like Christmas. I don't really know what Christmas feels like anymore though so maybe it does. I'm wearing flip flops today so probably not this.

Friday night I made Flako drive around to look at lights. I asked Cristina at work and she told me about Upper Hastings Ranch, which is just north of Pasadena. They know how to do Christmas lights! Each block has its own sign at every house. Many of the houses have at least a few lights.

This house was quite intense:

This was my favorite tree:

Seeing the lights made it feel somewhat more Christmasy.

This week

Ugh.  It's rainy.  That's ok because it matches my mood.  This has been the hardest week here for sure.  My car has been in the shop since last Friday.  The one part that was broken then "mysteriously" caused something else to be broken and they couldn't figure it out.  The car is still in the shop, supposedly done today, but I'll believe it when I see it.  Flako's been taking so much time and taking me to and from work every day this week.  I honestly don't know what I would have done otherwise, which leads me to the other part of why this week has sucked.  He's moving to the East Coast over Christmas.  It makes me incredibly sad.  If you talk to me about this, here are phrases that are not helpful at.all.  "It/you will be fine." "It will be good for you." "You'll meet new friends."  Don't say these to me.  The only thing they do is make me want to talk to you less.

Yeah, that's been my week.