As I write this, I sit in a restaurant abutting my hotel, the lovely Ramada St. James Gaslamp in San Diego. There's been a hotel on this site since early in the last century, and I'm enjoying its quaint charms--including an old style elevator with a door and a sliding gate. The Gaslamp District of San Diego is a hip spot of bars, restaurants and cool places to live.
I lived in San Diego for 15 months, from November of 1999 to February of 2001 when I was the XO of the USS PRINCETON (CG 59). I moved there from Washington, where I had finished a grueling tour as the Speechwriter for the Chief of Naval Operations. Writing speeches for oneself is easy--writing them for someone else, less so. At the end of that tour, my girlfriend of two years broke up with me--just as I was starting the drive west.
Although I loved my job and people I worked with (I'm dining in two nights with the world's best Naval Officer--a guy who worked for me in PRINCETON who now commands his own Destroyer), I HATED San Diego. I missed Washington. I missed the Eastern Time Zone. I never got used to actually watching an ENTIRE Monday Night Football Game. I hated coming home from work, cooking dinner, and then remembering that there was someone I wanted to call on the East Coast--except is was now 11PM out there. I was heartbroken. I was bitter. I hated day after day of 72 degrees. I lived in one of the most amazing places to live in America--Coronado, CA--in a perfect little apartment with a courtyard and citrus trees--but couldn't wait to get back to DC.
The "ambition at all costs" guy was alive and well then. I hated the leisure culture of Southern California. I hated that people seemed to work only so that they could have money to recreate--that their work alone was insufficient reward. I hated the culture of "spirituality". I lived here for 15 months and not a day went by where I didn't wish I were back in DC or Norfolk, back watching the Hoos in person at Scott Stadium or at least on Raycom Sports.
It's been nine years since I lived here, and much is the same. Flying in, one sees a low heights surrounding the airport, thick with population and low-slung dwellings. Palm trees are everywhere. The weather is sublime.
I've lived a life of few regrets. One of them is that I wasted 15 months of my life living here with a big, negative attitude. This place is wonderful--I should have enjoyed every single day I lived here. I should have loved the weather, the leisure, the sun, the mountains, the desert. I should have gotten my head out of my butt and just plain enjoyed it. Oh sure--it's still California--lots of taxes and a state government run amok. But my God it is nice here.....
Yeah buddy, I'll take Norfolk over San Diego any day.
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding?
You are a very strange person CW.
Yeah, I know.
ReplyDeleteWith which officer will you be dining? Perhaps your Ops officer, who didn't think he'd find anyone in the Navy as good as he was, then ran into you? Just curious.
ReplyDeleteThe good life and achievement are not incompatible. Just ask all the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
ReplyDeleteYou make me look forward to moving there Bryan
ReplyDelete