Six girls, two bedrooms, one month.
Covid calls for impulsivity. Take the semester off, ship out to San Diego, start a blog, eat a ton of tacos, befriend the entire USD population in Mission Beach.
It gets you thinking. What if Mom and Dad stayed in SD after I was born? Well I likely wouldn’t play lacrosse. So I likely would’ve broadened my college search. And maybe I wouldn’t have just discovered USD, the castle-on-the-hill, museum-of-a college full of fun-loving, work-hard-play-hard, always-smiling humans who take a novel to the beach for sunset and bike 30 miles to Del Mar as their Sunday paper. People who want more than anything for you to fall in love with every nook and cranny of their neighborhood just the way they did—sinking their teeth into their first Rose Donuts apple fritter donut (shout-out Connie!) after catching their first sunset wave in front of Tower 10. Food for thought.
People don’t stop moving here. Hanging out is anything but “hanging.” It isn’t couch potatoes scrolling through Instagram with New Girl on Netflix as white noise. It’s meeting up at the volleyball courts for a couple hours, the ocean as an intermittent shower. Calling Mom isn’t slumping into the couch cushion in monotone but rather a sunset stroll on the boardwalk, cheesing at the 88-year old still kickin’ it on his daily jog. An hour between class means squeezing in a surf, not an episode of Big Little Lies (spectacular show, don’t get me wrong, just time and place). Even a late-night ice cream run means a spontaneous three-mile bike ride.
So why would I ever leave? You’ve gotta always leave somewhere wanting more. The only thing more tragic than letting go of a special place is leaving when it’s no longer special. Overstaying your welcome to the point it loses its spark—it’s enchantment, if you will.
My last memory of Mission Beach: fish tacos, a maple-bacon donut, Mario Kart. Who knows when I’ll return, but I’ll keep that memory in my back pocket in the interim. So, if any of my USD friends are tuning in, I’ll see you soon, we’ll just see how soon “soon” is. :)
San Diego holds a special place in my ❤️. I am thrilled you got to experience it in all its glory. Here’s to Spiked lemonade!