After 17 years in Los Angeles, I was fluent in traffic shortcuts, niche coffee shops, and how to be optimistic when someone casually mentioned they were working on a screenplay. I could parallel park on a hill, one-handed. I’d survived preschool waitlists, earthquake drills, and overpriced poke bowls. Los Angeles felt like home, and I saw myself growing old there.
However, when I needed to move because of a crazy neighbor, my Zillow searches started getting broad. I began sneaking peeks at places farther and farther outside the city, like Temecula — a city an hour-and-a-half away.
I was online ogling homes with three-car garages and double walk-in closets. For the price of a one-bedroom condo in Silver Lake in LA, I could buy an entire Mediterranean villa with a pool, fruit trees, and neighbors who waved without trying to invite me to their open-mic.
So, after losing one too many bidding wars for million-dollar bungalows in Highland Park, LA, I found a huge McMansion with a pool in Temecula — the land of wine, wide streets, and not a single billboard featuring a Marvel character.
In 2022, me, my spouse, and three kids, packed up and headed for the suburbs.
The beginning felt like a luxurious vacation
At first, it was charming—like “moving into a Reese Witherspoon movie” charming. There were rolling hills, quiet cul-de-sacs and fresh air.
Our new house had 3,000 square feet of space—so much that I didn’t know what to do with it all. The kids used the living room as a skatepark. I was drunk on square footage and low property taxes. I was living the suburban dream.
Then, the silence set in—hollow silence where your own thoughts echo. Back in LA, every restaurant felt like a possibility. In Temecula, there were only chains that closed by 9 p.m. It felt like a vacation that had gone on too long, and I was in an alternate reality.
Friends from LA promised to visit. “We’ll come down for a weekend! Make it a wine-tasting thing!” However, lonely weekends came and went. It turns out a two-hour drive might as well be eight when you have traffic, kids, and careers. Only a couple of friends ever made it.
I began to get lonely
The isolation crept in slowly. One day, I realized I hadn’t had a real conversation with someone outside my family in a week. My most stimulating interaction was arguing with Alexa about her song choices.
I missed spontaneity. I missed my friends. I even missed my exasperating old neighbor who videotaped me every time I left my house.
Everything in Temecula felt out of sync with me. There was no late-night bookstore, no tiny theater doing weird plays. The Thai food was just okay. Los Angeles had its chaos, but it had energy. It had texture. It had weirdos, and I like weirdos.
I looked around at the perfectly paved parking lots, the matching beige stucco homes, the drive-thru pharmacies, and I felt like I was living inside a screensaver. Pleasant, sure, but also kind of fake.
I called my partner and said, “I think we made a mistake.”
She sighed and said, “You think?”
Back to Los Angeles, where I belong
A few months later, we put the house up for sale to head back to LA.
We found a place to rent in a less desirable neighborhood than the one we’d lived in before moving to the suburbs. It didn’t have a pool. Or a lemon tree. Or anything that could be described as “ample closet space.” But we got our people.
We got our weird little coffee shops and bumpy roads. Yes, I still have to fight for parking, and I pay more for less space, and someone did try to sell me collagen powder at the dog park last week. But I feel like myself again.
Temecula taught me something important: I’m not built for wide open spaces unless they come with live music, street tacos, and a chance encounter with someone from my improv class. I don’t want peace and quiet. I want chatter and chaos and complicated parking signs.
I thought I was craving calm, but what I was really craving was connection. For me, that lives in the noisy, messy, beautiful chaos of Los Angeles. In the crammed grocery stores, the traffic on the 101, and the surprise hugs at Trader Joe’s.
LA might be chaotic, but it’s my kind of chaotic.
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