Giles and I recently trekked out to California, a trip I had postponed for far too long. Every year, we mean to go out and visit and every year, we didn’t. Granted, the past few years were fairly easy to excuse. We had several rounds of visits to make, and we weren’t sure what to expect from any of them.
Round One: Southern California
After an hour and a half at the car rental, we finally made our way over to Redlands… 6 hours after landing. With the lovely reminder of why LA, California may be the worst place, I was able to visit Granny. Granny is my 100-year-old (literally) great-grandmother. She was one of the best people you would ever meet. She made the BEST biscuits and gravy from scratch (try to tell me differently, and I’ll fight you), constantly hummed hymns, and loved people. Visiting her was one of those things that you always mean to do, but intentionally miss. She had quickly declined over the years.
Seeing her as she is now wasn’t something I was quite ready to check off my list. It was incredibly hard to see her this way. But the truth is that it will most likely be the last time I see her, which is why we made this trip. To say goodbye to a dear person. And to have Giles meet her before she goes. I wished he could have known her then. But it was still good to get a chance to sit with her, if only for a moment.
Next up on the round of potentially uncomfortable ventures: joining my aunt and her family for dinner. I was practically raised with these people, so they are far from strangers. But after over 15 years of not seeing them (I haven’t been back to California in a long time), it felt like it might practically be a dinner with strangers. We ended up having a great time catching up and seeing where life has taken us all. The last time I saw my cousin, we were both in the awkward high school phase and she is now the mother of an adorable son, so there was a lot of lost time.
The night ended with a trip off to see another aunt and uncle. This time, there was homemade lemon cake, so it was definitely a success. There was so much familiarity with their house and all of the visits I had made there way back when. Everywhere we went felt like a memory you forgot that you had until you saw a glimpse that jogged it back to your mind. I was old enough when we left California to remember everything, but there was a lot I had forgotten, too.
Round Two: New Friends
The next day, we met up with some of Giles’ old friends, whom I hadn’t yet met. Truth be told, neither had he. In the world of IT professionals, it’s perfectly commonplace to have strictly online friends. We were planning to spend the better majority of the day consorting with brand-new-not-quite-yet-friends. As a devout introvert, this is one of the most frightening events. To haphazardly place the cherry on top of this anxiety pie, they were going to take us indoor rock climbing… all day. New friends + new activity. And I had such fond memories of my comfort zone.
The events of the day ended as anything but uncomfortable. We broke the ice over tacos (always a good life decision) and then hit up indoor rock climbing. Fret not, they ensured we watched a safety video, first. We instantly spotted the ‘intro’ section, by carefully locating where the awkward, small children were attempting to climb. After being given directions reflecting more confidence in my abilities than they should receive, Giles and I ‘bravely’ traversed our first climb. It was a bold one foot off the ground. After each correct move (and by ‘correct’, I mean that I didn’t fall, not that I did it well), our new friends gave little nuggets of encouragement or advice on where to go next.
Rockclimbing was certainly out of my exercise comfort zone. With that said, we quickly learned why there was such hype over rock climbing. We also learned that any apprehension over an entire day of rock climbing with new friends was completely unfounded. These were ‘my people’ and there was such ease in friendship.
Round Three: Redwoods
We had one final visit to make and this one was a little unorthodox. Technically, the friends we were meeting were from Texas. They had decided to throw caution to the wind, sell their house and travel the US in an RV. This would be my worst nightmare (I hate RV traveling), but all of the pictures they take make me second guess my opinion. I was looking forward to this leg of the trip because it would satisfy the two things I missed the most about California: trees and mountains. Texas has been lovely, but it would be oh so wonderful if there were at least a handful of mountains.
With the weather in the 50s when we landed, Giles was thrilled with our decision to make it up north. After a month of weather in the 100s, we could have stayed in the mountains for the rest of the summer. There was lush green everywhere and the air smelled… clean. You know to expect ‘big’ trees, but nothing can fully prepare you for the Redwoods- the sheer mass of these trees and the density of the forest. The pictures never quite do it justice, but when do they?
It wasn’t just the ‘big tree’ we came to see and it was great to see our friends during their travels, rather than waiting for the obligatory holiday visit to Texas. Maintaining friendships in your middle age is arduous work, to say the least. When you find your people, you travel to see them and put forth some effort to invest in that friendship. Despite my awkwardness, I even found more of my people on this trip.
