Did she make ammends with her hometown afterall?

For context into my complicated relationship with my hometown, please refer to here.

As I’ve been telling people that I am going to leave, I’ve felt…sad. My dad and my mom are obviously excited for me, but now everytime my dad cheerfully greets me upon waking up with, “Good morning roomie!” I want to hold it forever because I think about how in just a few weeks we won’t be roomies anymore. I then think about the time with my mom that I should’ve spent more of. It never feels like enough time.

I told my writing group I was leaving soon and again I felt unexpectedly sad, as they make upcoming plans for a writing session I wont be here for and I am sad that I won’t get to hear weekly updates on everyone’s vastly different writing projects. I’ll miss the Barnes & Noble where we gather every Saturday at 10 am, 10:30 for me because I’m usually late but I still manage to catch up adequately on the synopsis of everybody’s writing, and life, status. We sit at a miraculous conglomerate of pushed together tables in the Starbucks cafe, the group only growing larger, the tables only extending on each other in funky L and Z shapes. Somehow, this abstract arrangement of sitting still manages to take all of us writers to the flow state. Our precious, collective flow and focus that we find during this one hour spent at Shut Up & Write.

I love how over time I’ve learned what each writer’s preferred medium is. Laptop, notebook, iPad, laptop with a mouse, no mouse. And how they write with that physical medium - laptop in lap, on table, loose notebook pages, pages kept tidy in a bind. And I know each one of their pondering writing faces - what they look like as they search for those elusive words that are hopefully the right words, pulling them either from their inner world or somewhere outside of them. Eyebrows furrowed, head cocked, blank stare into the page or out into the distance… what are they finding? What can’t they seem to find?

Some listen to music or don’t, some put in earplugs or welcome in the unpredicatble bookstore noise. Glasses on, straight posture, or maybe a sloucher (I’m a sloucher). Legs crossed or uncrossed, a slack demeanor, or sitting slightly more refined and poised. Most buy a Starbucks drink each time. Hot coffee or tea to sip contemplatively, as a solemn writer does.

I shared my Kindess of Strangers excerpt with them that marked my first official published work, and they all beamed with excitement for me. It felt like show and tell, passing around the physical book my words were bound in. I’ll miss their enthusiasm and genuine support of my writing, the first time I’ve opened up to recieve support for my writing, ever. My first writing group I attended was before I even had a Substack. It was huge for me to show up somewhere, purely as me, and admit that I was a writer. But so was everyone else! And how comforting was it to know that there are other writers who can claim they’re writers without being best seelling authors or prodigies, and they are all living in my same town! They’re closer than I ever thought.

I told my restaurant coworkers I was leaving, and I felt sad. My coworkers who I’v known now for a year, and am just now feeling close enough with to hang out with, outside of work. You know that’s a milestone in the coworkers friendship spectrum, to take the friendship beyond the forced confines of our restaurant. After a full year, I realized that I like them so much better now that I know them so much better. I realized how much I appreciated them at work, laughing, bonding, shooting the shit when shit hits the fan, as it always does in any fast-paced customer service job. Those coworkers are crucial for making work feel lighter, and I grew to like them so much that it no longer felt right to deduce them as merely “coworkers'“. Guys, I think we are more than that… I think we are… friends?

I told my running friends I was leaving and I felt… sad! They talk about the 5k race series that they will do this summer, how it will be an actual fun race with post race beers and good summertime vibes and not a strenuous race with high stakes that the runner stresses about for months. I admit, I felt a pang of FOMO. FOMO for my Indiana life?! I can’t believe it!

Does part of me want to stay here? I know most of me does not. But as summer appraoches, I am more able to see how an Indiana summer wouldn’t be all that bad.

I think about running and completing the marathon and all the emotions that will likely come up. While training through the harsh winter against everything within me that wanted to hide from the world inside, somewhere within that, I found my refuge. A way to get through it all- running.

A dedicated running schedule, running with other people. Running alone so deep in my thoughts, faster and faster, until I expunged them all out to dust. Running with high tempo music that kept tastes of my Barcelona techno entraced life alive, even in Indiana. Pushing myself to do workouts I haven’t done since high school track. Joining a consistent group on Satuday morning long runs and learning how important it is to fuel DURING a run. That means getting those goopy gels down in one quick scrape of my teeth before it’s sticky viscosity has a chance to get stuck in my throat. It’s nasty, but it has to be done.

Training for the marathon was a lot of learning from my mistakes and giving up my ego. I thought I could be a long distance runner without fueling. WRONG. I thought I could amp up my weekly mileage in a hasty progression, WRONG. But training for the marathon was also a lot of surprising myself. Running 16 or 19 miles with friends, chatting and speeding up time and not even realizing that I had just run 19 miles faster than my initial marathon goal pace. As I realized how capabale I was, my goal for the marathon shifted from running just for completion, to running while pushing myself towards an ambitious time.

Signing up for a spring marathon means training in the peak of the winter. The cold, dark, snow-slated winter. As much as it absoltuely sucked some days, I am grateful that’s how it had to be. I became a better runner because of that, mentally stronger, physically resilient. I kept showing up and gearing up accordingly. For 20 mph winds, for -10 degree windchills, for snowy pavements, muddy trails, all of it.

Running is a reciprocal relationship - you show up for it, and it will show up for you. It will reward you, in the form of adrenaline, faster splits, stronger legs, and a clearer mind. All you have to do is get through the pain. The pain, in a weird way, was a reprieve for me. Occupying my mind with physical pain negated, even just temporarily, some of the inner pain I was struggling with. Continuously showing myself that I could come out on the other end in one solid piece was euphoric. I began to fantasize about the euphoria I’d feel after completing the marathon, knowing the inevitabile, never-before-felt physical pain and stress my body would endure, but also envisioning how the pride of getting through it all would immediatly strip that pain of its power.

I was daydreaming about the afterglow of the race and how finishing it would mean so much more to me than anyone would ever know. It wasn’t just going to be my first marathon, it was going to be a RELEASE I had desperatley been working towards. I could cross the finish line, no matter what my time was, with a sense of relief for leaving it all behind. That’s what runners strive for upon finishing a race, the feeling that they gave it everything they possibly had. And then that’s it. You left it all out there, and there’s nothing more to do.

I was ready to leave the race behind, but I also was ready to leave the months of loneliness, sadness, and foreboding about my future behind. I was ready to get my life back and be away with the pain i felt during the last months of 2025. The funny thing is, is that that pain is worse than any runners knee or tight calf or achilles tendonitis. It’s the pain in life nobody wants to feel and we all run away from. But striding into that 26th (and 0.2) mile would prove that I did something with that pain. I sweat it out everyday, I ran it mercilessly into the ground, I pulverized it beneath my New Balance 880s. I let it all build up inside me pounding loudly from within until the only choice of release was to visciously run it out, through each huff and puff of my breath.

I’d let it bubble up, fuel me, and then I’d vehemently release.

I made it to spring. I got through the mud. Just in time for my new beginning, new job, new state, and another mighty transition (when do these end??). It was the perfect narrative.

And when it was all over, I was not ready to leave. I had a 26.2 medal to show for my endurance that I’ll try to keep forever. I also had my running friends to credit for reminding me that doing hard things with other people around you is WAY better than doing hard things alone. And against all my stubborn attempts to withdrawal from my hometown life and sulk in my woe, I now had friends and a life I actually built and grew to love! I had groups I was sad to leave, nacent friendships with coworkers that were only getting stronger, my parents, my home, my routine. A scared little community, who, because of, I did in fact …. make ammends with my hometown.

And that’s how it ends. Lessons I learned from this: 1.) I have so much more faith in myself that I can make community anywhere I go. 2.) People truly grow on me, and I can’t rule anyone out before getting to know them well. 3.) Just joining activities of things I love to do will naturally bring about the friendships. 4.) Runners in Indiana are no joke and running with them throughout the winter will make anyone in awe of their perserverence and dedication. 5.) Midwest friendliness is still, and always will be, unbeatable. Something I’ll do my best to emanate as I start this new chapter in LA.

Xoxo!