What a difference half a year makes. I've been a Californian for a little more than six months now...and naturally, it's a lot less scary than it was. It's amazing how quickly you can get used to something, how fast we adapt, how easily something new becomes routine.

I have friends, and a social life, though no best friend here yet. There's someone I would have liked as a best friend, but she already has one here. But it's only been six months; I didn't have a best friend in New York this quickly either. And I do have family close by, which fills something in my heart that I'd forgotten was empty. I first felt that pain when my parents moved out of Pennsylvania less than a year after I moved to the city (I wonder if New York will always be "the city" to me, or if LA will ever usurp that title), but over the next year it dulled and faded. Until a bright sunny day in September, of course, when the desperate need to be with the people who have loved me my whole life was the overpowering force behind my grief. When I didn't move to LA and instead renewed my lease in June 2001, I had pretty much made up my mind that I would make the move a year later, the next time the lease ran out. But the crushing loneliness of September 11 and the days that followed crystallized the decision. Knowing that I can see my sister and her family or my brother and his fiancee on a moment's notice has done wonders for me -- I had roots in LA from the moment I arrived. And knowing that I can drive to my parents' house in less than half a day only adds to my feelings of security here out West.

I spent Rosh HaShanah with my parents in Arizona, and on the plane back to California I realized that I was coming home to Los Angeles for the first time. I've come home to my third adopted city twice more, and I've begun to realize that calling this city home came much more naturally than the previous city. From the moment I arrived in New York, I described the path that led me there as "an accident of fate" -- one which worked out pretty well in the end, but an accident nonetheless. LA has been my city of dreams for as long as I can remember; this is where I have always wanted to be. Nothing in life is ever exactly what we expected, and this is no exception. But making this move was absolutely the right choice for me. As much as I miss my friends in New York, I have no regrets about leaving. For the three years I lived there, I always felt like I was holding a little part of me back, waiting and searching for something I kept expecting to find but never did. I think I've found it here; at any rate, I don't feel like I'm searching for it anymore.

It gets colder here than I would like, but something tells me I'd think that just about anywhere! There is almost always sunshine here, and even when it's chilly, there's not the biting, angry wind I dreaded every winter on the East Coast. The view from my window is nothing special during the day -- but at night, you don't see the nondescript nearby buildings; you see the lights of the city buildings a bit farther away, and it's beautiful. I can't see Broadway from here, 'tis true, but I can see the city I chose, which (more than) makes up for it. Six months ago, my California life was a blank slate. I've finally started writing. I don't know where the story will go, but I love the setting, and I'm ready for the plot to thicken, or at least to begin.