California Dreamin'

By Jenna Simsen

I’ve always believed that seeing new places and experiencing new things can change your perception, but not necessarily your life. While in my teens, I knew what I wanted to do in the future, but not by what means or even how or where I could make that happen. By the time I was 18, I had seen Rome and Athens, New York and Florida, and so many other places in between. All of these places inspired me to want to live my life a certain way, filled with culture and history. Although all of these destinations were great to visit, none of them made me feel I could ever call them home. It wasn’t until I took a vacation to California that I discovered my true calling-that vacation changed everything.
On a whim, my parents decided to take our family on a week-long trip to central California the summer after I graduated. We visited Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley, Sonoma County, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and many other small scenic towns along highway one. Having lived on the coast my entire life, I was used to the ocean. I had walked along the beaches of Galveston countless times, but never like this. I walked along the cool sands of the beaches of Santa Cruz with the mountains in the distance and the small town behind me. Until then, I had fallen in love with many other places, but I knew this now held the number one spot in my heart.
A couple years passed and I continued my life here in Texas, but even still, I couldn’t shake it. I hung all my pictures and postcards in my room and tried to relive my experience vicariously through my four seasons of “The O.C.,” but it wasn’t enough. After much time had passed, I decided to take the financial plunge and returned again last summer. The second time around I visited Southern California. I explored everything, as much as I could within six days. I walked down Hollywood Boulevard, had lunch on the pier in Newport Beach, dove in the ocean of Malibu and watched the most amazing sunset I’ve ever seen on Pacific Beach in San Diego. Watching that sunset will forever be engraved in my memory; it was then that I decided I didn’t ever want to leave – I have to move here.
Since then, everything I have done has revolved around my mission to live on the West Coast.   I’ve picked out where I want to live, budgeted how much I need to save and have been preparing myself mentally for the change of scenery. Everyone knows that I want to move there. My parents give me lectures about how much money I will be wasting and my friends tell me I’ll be lonely without my loved ones around. What everyone doesn’t seem to realize is that I already know this and, at this point, I feel like not going would only serve to be the biggest regret I’ll ever have.
Lately though, with the economy how it is and the search for work becoming more difficult, I’m being even more discouraged by people who care about me. The way I see it is, I figure if I’m going to have to be a young adult in these times anyway, why not let it be with the Pacific Ocean outside my window?
Until the day I can sit comfortably in my own place in Huntington Beach, I will continue to humor everyone’s criticism, read the Los Angeles Times via my Twitter account, watch “The O.C.” DVDs and admire the full-size California flag hanging in my room, because every great reality begins with just a dream.