It’s been about 1 year. I left Santa Monica last year around this time, and it was an emotional roller coaster for me at first. My sister was crying when I left, and my mom was proud that I graduated, but it was emotional for me.

I was about 300 miles away, when I received a phone call from my father. He didn’t know I had left, and he didn’t say goodbye to me. I couldn’t turn back, I was way too far away.

I wanted to cry.

I never thought that I would miss Santa Monica, and I never thought that California would be a place in my memories, and not a state that I would live and die in. I always dreamed of moving out of Los Angeles, or Culver City, and while I did get out of that place and into Santa Clarita, it wasn’t a long move for me.

In my college years I spent a lot of time in Santa Monica, simply because I was living there while I was going to school and engaged. I also spent my senior year there and the last six months of my college career there. I was married in Culver City, but lived in Santa Monica while my degree was getting ironed out.

Seattle is a nice city, I haven’t seen everything, but I like it. I like it a lot better than I did Los Angeles. This city is full of life at times, and full of death at times. Los Angeles though, and especially Santa Monica, was a great city. It had culture that I could recognize, it had my people, my language. Seattle doesn’t have that, for the most part.

I take my culture wherever I go, so the lack of signs is ok with me.

I miss Santa Monica though. I miss the churches, I miss my old friends, my skate spots that had me getting chased by the police. I miss the school I went to, and the video store I worked at. I miss being a video store clerk, I miss having complaints about my job, and I miss hustling the customers for late fees.

I miss the pastrami sandwiches from Jerry’s Deli in Marina Del Rey.

I miss Santa Monica, but it’s not where I needed to live anymore. The world is expensive, and none more expensive to me than the place my mom lives. I miss my sister, she is like the city. She’s vibrant, alive, and full of curiosity. She’s got light in her, but I miss her. She’s got so much confusion about who she is, and at times I wonder if she’s going to be ok. But I’ve been an example for so long, that she can’t blame me for her slip ups.

Santa Monica seems like a world away. I’m here in the Northwest, and I’m lonely at times. But I am a good kind of loner.

I grew up with a babysitter named Nintendo. I grew up with friends named Mario, Luigi, Rygar, Zelda, and Lolo (adventures of lolo). I don’t think anyone truly understands how I could just not say a word.

I try to be social.

My coworkers know it, we’re a good happy bunch when we’re together. Sharing the misery that is technology based work.

I might miss my family, the city, the experiences, but I miss being free the most.

The most freedom I’ve ever felt was when I was at the top of a 9 story parking garage at three in the morning. My friends and I were up there, I still had my skateboard from Zero, and I was scared. We all decided to go for it, and we started our slow decline while we were outside still, and then the parking lot swallowed us all.

We spun through a web of concrete, smooth concrete, and we ducked, and went down fast. We never hit the ground, we just kept going, faster and faster, around corners, dodging bullets, dodging cars, we were unstoppable.

Santa Monica gave me freedom.

I remember skateboarding down third street promenade, all the way through. That’s about 4 city blocks, dodging people, the police, and the world…I was a rebel.

Santa Monica comes to my mind because of Jason Lee’s picture, a perfect rail slide at Santa Monica place. I wasn’t into skateboarding when he launched himself onto the rail and someone snapped his photo. But in many ways I feel like someone snapped my photo, and I’m the memory for their story about Santa Monica.

I know there’s a year book out there with some writing I did, waiting 3 hours in school to give it to them, I don’t think they know I think about what I wrote…what an idiot I was.

Today marks the one year anniversary for me…maybe not the exact date, but at least in my mind.

Seattle, she is a great city, and if I ever leave it, I will write the same memory of her.

But today, I write this memory of Santa Monica, thanks to a photo I saw of Jason Lee.