The day has come: leaving Las Vegas

Two months and a day ago, I wrote a post about my plans to leave Las Vegas. The day has come.

I almost didn't move here in the first place; sitting in a San Francisco coffee shop and researching Las Vegas, I was ready to tell Victor that I didn't think it was a place where I wanted to live. And then I heard a song playing: the theme from the French movie Contempt, which I first heard when it was re-used on the Casino soundtrack. It was a song that I liked so much that I'd made it the first track on my "bedtime ZZZs" playlist.

(Music link)

"A song from the Casino sountrack," I thought, "It must be a sign."

I've since realized that it really was a sign. Unfortunately, a sign that I badly misinterpreted. After all, Casino opens with the main character being blown up, and his wife was practically a prisoner in their home. Hearing the song that day wasn't a sign that I should move to Vegas... it was a warning not to come.

So my reasons for coming to Vegas were suspect, at best, and the man I came for turned out to be a shady character, to put it mildly. LESSON LEARNED.

Still, I grew to love the desert, and I came to appreciate much about Sin City. There are so many great people here, and I'll miss them. But I'll also welcome them to Portland, and I'll see them again here (and everywhere else we crazy queens fly off to).

But it took coming to Vegas for me to make a decision about what to do with myself for the second half of my life. I've been nursing this feeling of being "in between" the past few years... at least now I know where I'm going.

I THINK I MUST HAVE BEEN a nomad in another life (probably a desert nomad considering how much I love the heat). Driving to Portland will mark my 21st move to a new home. I was just talking to my dad, and we agreed that I must like it since I keep doing it.

I'm looking for something, and maybe like the main character in The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, I'm looking for exactly the opposite of what I think I'm looking for.

But today I'm getting on the road again. I'm leaving Las Vegas, without any regrets for coming, and having learned here again both the importance of friendship and of believing that I can follow my own path. And I'm going somewhere that I love, and even more than the first time, it feels like going home.

To everyone I love in Vegas, you will be missed, but I'll see you the weekend of November 7th to the 8th!

And to everyone in Portland, can't wait to see you... and I'm looking forward to the spring, lol.

As for you, Alejo, I'm looking forward to it all. :-)

Here we go. Ready. Begin.