Nightmares about California

Now that it’s not completely taboo to talk about where this next chapter of our lives might take us, I’ve begun trying on the phrase, “I’m moving to Northern California,” trying to see how it feels. And it feels good; it feels warm; it feels rainy; it feels very, very far away.

I’ve also begun trying on the idea of becoming a San Francisco Giants fan, although I know I will always love the Nats more (and I will always look god-awful in orange). I’ve begun looking for apartments to rent and used cars to buy and Bay Area coffee shops to make my stomping grounds. 

I’ve begun to realize every upcoming tour has a show in San Francisco after my start date, and every concert venue is someplace I’ve never heard of. I’ve begun to realize telling someone I went to school in Notre Dame, Indiana, might not hold the same weight in a San Francisco bar as it does in Halligan (where multiple middle-aged dudes will offer to buy your friends beers because they love the Fighting Irish). 

I can’t pretend that this isn’t happening anymore — I’m not going home, and I’m not following the age-old Notre Dame-to-Chicago pipeline (and sometimes, of course, I wish I were). 

While people have commended me for doing something “different” and taking a leap of faith, my nightmares about California have a lot less to do with fear that I won’t like it there or won’t make friends — and more to do with the fear of losing myself. 

I don’t want to become someone my friends here wouldn’t recognize or like or love. I don’t want to betray the woman of integrity I became in this flat, cold, midwestern city (a place I adore beyond words, beyond the confines of the Notre Dame campus, a place where I found myself, where dive bars and soirees became equally familiar places, where strangers became friends).

I don’t want to abandon the person who grew to love it here. 

As some of my high school friendships have shapeshifted and gotten more distant or completely dissolved, I find myself sometimes feeling regretful that I left Virginia (that “home” isn’t as home-y as it used to be). I’ve tried to remind myself that the growth I’ve experienced at Notre Dame is a net positive, that I never lost myself, that I was allowed to change and so were the people I grew up with.

Occasionally, when I flip through my high school yearbook, I see it, written in multicolored Sharpie: “Never change, Kate.” I never understood this, but now I do. I think what they meant was: “You’re allowed to change, but dear God, don’t lose yourself. You’ve got something good going.”

As I take these steps into the next chapter of my life, I try to tell myself this.

I also try to tell myself that at this stage I’ve become seasoned in big changes — and I got through every single one. 

When I became a “regular” Notre Dame student following my glorious Gateway year, I felt I lost my “special sauce,” that somehow I was all out of “special” when I became a full-time Domer. But then I realized that being a Gateway is actually just who I am, and it’s okay that it’s not a part of my day-in day-out life anymore. When I left Rome, I felt I lost my swagger because it was too cold to wear short skirts when I returned and I stopped feeling so familiar with the friends I lived with and washed dishes with and stayed up all night with. But then I realized that being Roman for a little while is actually just who I am, and it’s okay that I’m not physically there right now — it is forever embedded in the fabric of my being.

I’m convinced that when we walk away, we don’t actually leave. It’s never actually over. 

And some of my best friends are living proof of this, as I’ve seen them learn to love a life outside of Notre Dame, Indiana. I’ve seen them learn to love Chicago or D.C. or New York or Durham or Los Angeles. I’ve seen them learn to love a life that is often more liberating and occasionally more terrifying.

And they’ve assured me I can do it too — when Olivia wiped my tears in Butch McGuire’s because she merely mentioned graduation. That following Monday, she sent me a video and said, “Turn the volume on and listen to yourself.” It’s a video of North Quad on one of the many beautiful spring days we sprawled with our friend group. In the background, you can just barely hear me saying, “This is the experience we signed up for.”

And I believe it. And I too will believe it, in California, a place that was never my home, but someday will be. And if you’re a dear friend of mine, perhaps you can promise me a visit.