The Long Journey Home

New Jersey bound! Who drives a Prius dragging a trailer behind it almost 3000 miles? These weirdos right here

I moved back to the East Coast, so you probably thought that this blog was over, huh? Especially since I mostly started it 5 (!) years ago to detail my new adventures on the West Coast. Well since I can't shut up that notion is out the window, I haven't even come close to running out of things to say!

I left the Bay Area to move back to New Jersey on August 18, 2014. I moved to the Bay Area on August 16, 2009. So I was there for almost EXACTLY 5 years. Around the time I was leaving I was going to write this huge blog post reflecting on my time in the Bay and all of the crazy, insane things I went through, and what it all meant....but then I got tired.

Because I was pregnant.

Yes, two days before Roberto and I left on our road trip to drive cross country back home I found out. It was nuts, it was unexpected, but seriously, knowing me, what else could you expect?

You would expect a random Naderto baby, that's what

I could go into what the last five years in a brand new land, far away from all of my friends and family meant. Even now, after living back in the East Coast for almost two months, I still feel like I'm barely unpacking all that I've experienced. But then I realize something, I don't need to share all that right now BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THIS ENTIRE BLOG IS ABOUT. Is it a chronicle of my struggles, my musings, my experiences outlining all of the cool stuff I did and the confusing ideas I had as to where my path would lead. So if you want to know what the last 5 years were like, you have pages of blog posts to enjoy :-)

DOOO IT!!!

The gist of it is this though, my five years in California basically beat the adulthood into me. Which is not what most people would imagine when they think of California. Hey, it's the Golden state, full of sunshine and happy chill people that hang out at beaches, eat organically and do yoga all day. Okay some of that is actually true, but I moved to California for one person, and that person was Roberto. I had no other people, no community, no friends! He was it! On top of that I got stuck in the economic downturn and ended up jobless for a year. A whole torturous yet wonderful year where I think I gave myself multiple ulcers while desperately trying to discover my true passions and direction.

And direction came slowly, but it came from all over the place. I became heavily involved in local California politics, then state and national politics. I was elected to be a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, I helped co-found the Black Young Democrats of the East Bay (which to this day is one of the things I have been involved with that I am the most proud of). I served on a gazillion boards, I fought for American Muslim Civil Rights, I organized with South Asian groups, I worked with and taught refugee communities, I ran an inner city program for black and brown youth, I blogged like crazy, I read and wrote poems about and with South Asian women on stage in San Francisco. I joined fellowships. I was appointed to a State Assembly Women's committee, and all this random craziness led to me being recognized on a GOOD 100 list of activists. I made friends, a whole gang of them. I have proof that they exist, they came out en mass for my West Coast wedding. I made a new West Coast mom and West Coast sister. I gained an entire family where I worked, the first time that's ever happened at a job for me.

Some more family I've adopted along the way

I also had my first major mental and emotional melt down on the West Coast. It never got that bad until I was in California, alone, jobless, friendless and just absolutely, completely and utterly lost and broke...oh and did I mention how broke I was?

But  I survived you California! I did! And you made me strong as hell. Now I am incubating a bun of awesomeness, I have a  husband and Prius with over 130,000 miles on it, and two of the most amazing cats in the world to show for my time. I have friends I will never forget or stop loving because of it.

And now I am back home, a somewhat different person, a strangely adult person. Perhaps more worldly, and probably bit crazier than before, but either way, I am irrevocably changed. 

This past weekend, I spent time with a family who adopted me and who I lived with for two years straight after college and before moving to the Bay Area. I had dinner at a home I first visited eight years ago. As I pulled into the driveway of this home I couldn't help but reflect on the 22 year old that showed up to that home eight years ago. That person was so full of fear and confusion as to what the future held. I had been single for almost three years at that point and saw any semblance of a romantic relationship as a traumatic lesson in futility. I came to that home in someone else's Prius. I didn't have a car, an apartment, or a job. I was a lost leaf floating haplessly in the wind. 

My East Coast family

Contrast that to this Sunday. Now I was driving up in my own car, married and expecting, with a full time job, my own apartment and though I am still wracked with uncertainty, I have taken it as a fact of life. None of us really know where we are going, and maybe, just maybe I have started to make peace with that.

Home has been a very winding road back, but the person who showed up to this home eight years later would not have been this person today without my five years in California. You've left a mark, West Coast, home may be where the heart is, but I realize that my heart is actually scattered, amongst people I love all across the country. And maybe I wouldn't have it any other way.

Nadia 3.0

Often, younger people speak about how 'old' they feel, sites like Buzzfeed post multiple nostalgia lists where Generation X/Yer's wax poetic about how ancient we are.

SRSLY THO GUYS, can you believe BSB is this old now?? WE R SO ANCIENT

There's a great quote that I read stating that "Growing old is a privilege denied to many".

I've lost enough amazing people in my life to realize that this sentiment is very true, so I will very much spare people complaints of how old I feel, since I'm not old...at all. That is until I hang out with teenagers and college students, because then I realize I just want to yell at them to turn down their music and get off my lawn.

Get away from me with your YOLO

What I will say is that I am happy my 20's are over...seriously, SO happy that it's over.

I feel like not enough people my age actually think that, most are pretty devastated that their 20's have come and gone. Perhaps because they held our college days, when people were young, sexy, wild and free? Maybe some people had hot love affairs, or just affairs, or traveled around the world, went to awesome concerts and partied their nights away?

I had an amazing college experience in my 20's, to this day it held some of my best experiences ever. I partied, not too hard, but yes had great social times.

But I'm going to keep it real, my 20's were HORRIBLE. If you asked me to define my 20's, I would say that that it was defined by trauma, uncertainty, insecurity, fear, heartbreak...and more trauma.

If I could go back in time and see my bright, shining, happy-go-lucky face as a 20 year old, I would grip myself by the shoulders and say "I am so sorry, but everything will go to hell, over and over again, and then it will go to hell again".
And if my 20 year old self looked to me for comfort or advice to rely on during these trying times, I would just say:

 

Because that's all I could have done is braced myself! There was no wisdom or good advice that would have made any of it easier to handle. Seeing my family go through unbelievable fathoms of despair for YEARS as my mentally ill father was set up and sent to jail for a victimless crime, from when I was 21-27 off and on, to going through intense romantic heartache and confusion, to having no economic or job security and private loans that threatened to financially drown me forever; I have to say that making it to my 30's has been an ACCOMPLISHMENT.

In my 20's I tried to hold it together as our systems worked to decimate my family, I tried to hold it together when I got a call from my fathers prison because prison guards beat him so badly that he almost died. I also thought that I would go to medical school, then law school before realizing (after taking all the important exams) that the reason I could hardly pass any of them was because of a long term undiagnosed learning disorder...due to, you guessed it, severe emotional trauma.

I moved cross country at age 26 for love. I thought coming to California would be a glorious adventure full of sunny days, warm nights and fulfilled dreams. Instead what I got was a completely collapsed economy and a very ill suited job experience that drove me into unemployment with no benefits until I fought for, and won them back myself (with the help of an angel from a local union). What I also got was no friends, no jobs, and backed up loans...oh yea and a father that was put back into prison by a corrupt legal structure.

my 20's

It's nuts to think that a good chunk of my 20's was me hoping to not end up homeless and crazy. I wish that was an exaggeration. The past decade broke me, plain and simple.

But I made it, know why? Because of people, because of people who loved me fiercely and completely. People who believed in me even when I was literally and figuratively scrunched up into  fetal position. People who let me live in their homes for free, people who paid for my therapy, friends who stayed up with me all night to hear the same complaints and fears over and over again without complaining...not even once.

Because of mentors and bosses who took a chance on me to hire me and give me the space to grow and explore my talents. Because of people who encouraged me when nothing I did seemed to go the right way. Because of a man who drove me crazy and who I drove crazy, but who decided that I was still the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Somehow, it's worked out so far

These are the reasons that I am 30 today, because of all of the love, care, devotion and time from countless people who each gave me gifts of hope that grew big enough to give me the strength, perseverance and  fortitude that I hold today.

Sometimes you need people to tell you that you are good enough a zillion times when life is constantly beating you down and showing you the exact opposite of that. I was lucky to have those people. They helped me pick up the pieces until I become some half-healed cobbled up proverbial Frankenstein's monster. In pieces but at least somewhat put together.

As my 30's begin I have to say that I am relieved and excited. I have more confidence, I am in the best shape of my life (take that, hot 20's), and frankly I KNOW that hard times will be ahead, I know that life is full of landmines. But this time, no matter how bad the storm will be, I will have the support and love that will get me through. I will be faster, better, stronger, I will be Nadia 3.0.

I plan to evolve like a Pokemon

And more than that, I hope to be the one that pays it forward and supports others, who makes the world a better place, who is there for people that need it the most. I have gotten way too much love and kindness to not do this. Me not helping others would be a huge injustice to those who helped me survive to be who I am today.

This will be an epic decade, whether there be storms or sunshine, this time I know that I will not be broken.

And if I am, I will just have to patch up again, I've been put back together before you know...

So to recap, my 20's were like this:

And I hope to make my 30's like this:

So bring it on.