A picture worth exactly 371 words

It was two years ago this week that I made the conscious decision to move to Los Angeles. I wrote most of the dirty details last year at this time, so now I thought I'd let the picture below speak for me.

This is me and one of my very best friends in the entire world, Kristin. The picture was taken at our shore house over Labor Day weekend in 2004, and I love this picture for so many reasons.

At first glance, the two of us look so happy, so carefree, but inside, we were both totally miserable. She had just the day before gotten into a fight with her boyfriend, a fight so serious and deeply personal that I was surprised she even made it down that weekend. She was crying for most of that day, and despite the fact that we had lived together and pledged together and shared most of our adult lives together, it was one of the very few times I've ever seen her do that.

I was miserable because I had just come back from my third trip to LA in seven months, and just had this feeling that I needed to move there. I didn't know why, or how, or any of the details, I just knew in my heart that things were different than they had been only the week before.

We were both somewhat annoyed because while we had had a great summer together, we knew we had been in a house with people we had very little in common with. It was one of those things we had just come to expect, though - at 28, not everybody was going to be as cool or as fun as some of the people we had known in college and our early 20's. We were getting used to settling. And we were annoyed at ourselves for doing that.

Notice that there is literally a shadow hanging over us. Only my feet are in the clear, ready to walk - no, RUN - away from the metaphorical darkness.

The picture shows two close friends hugging each other out of love. What I see, though, are two close friends holding on for dear life.