Beginning with an End

It feels a little bittersweet to kick off the beginning of the Summer of Shanley adventures with the end of one of my biggest life adventures. I know to some, it may feel like I’ve been talking about leaving San Francisco a lot these last few weeks and maybe you are thinking would I just get on with it, but to me, I’m not quite sure I could ever say enough to thank San Francisco or California in general for my time here and how much I grew as an individual. Most of you know that I’m big into thank you letters or notes. So here goes…

Dear San Francisco,

I’m not sure if you remember the young girl who showed up on your doorstep almost 15 years ago with a dream to try on something new, but really only imagined she’d stay for a year or two at the most. She wasn’t sure if she’d make friends outside of her cousin and his friends who already lived there, she wasn’t sure if she’d find something to call her own and she wasn’t sure she could stand being so far from her family. To say the least she was a bit unsure of everything…even herself. 

Thanks to you and all the faces and places you brought into her life; I can tell you she’s leaving much more sure of herself and even totally ok with the parts she still isn’t sure about. I know this to be true because that girl was me. 

I could thank you endlessly for your beauty and how being in your space made me love and appreciate nature so much more. Don’t even get me started on that bridge of yours.  I must have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures of it, but yet, every time, it was like I was seeing it for the first time.  It never lost its ability to light a spark in my heart. Can I also say you did one hell of a job in the friends department?  I wish I could go back and whisper in that young girl’s ear and say, “Don’t worry, you will find your people.  They will understand you, believe that you are just the right amount of crazy and they will love you as if you were their own.” You not only helped me find something to call my own, but you figured out ways that I could share it with others too. Whoever thought the girl who had asked the Gym teacher in High School if she could take the attendance so she didn’t have to run the warm-up laps would later say to a group of her running friends, “Remember that time we ran a 50k”. And no, that wasn’t a typo…5-0 K or 31.1 miles for anyone not adept at counting the Ks. Truth be told, the current me is probably more team take attendance than team run the 50k, but there was a time and it was sensational.  I have to give credit to my parents for instilling in me the want to give back to others in life, however, you gave me the avenues in my adulthood to do such things. Whether it was sponsoring a student in the Tenderloin or volunteering for KEEN SF you filled in any empty spaces in my heart with the joy of giving. Now not everything was sunshine and roses during my somewhat extended stay with you. But somehow, you found a way to teach me or show me that in the end, it was all going to be ok. Remember that time when my heart was ripped into what felt like a million pieces and over time you figured out a way for it to mend and maybe just maybe if someone is lucky enough, to love again. That was quite the magic you did there. I didn’t think I was ever going to come back from that one.

In closing, thank you for sharing your space, your people and your magic with me. I will never stop loving you and even if the prices go as high as yours, you will always rent space in my head and more importantly my heart. Now please go and find someone else in need of your soul-filling ways, so I can move on knowing you were needed somewhere else and it was my time to go.

                                                                        Forever and Always,

                                                           Your favorite Speech Geek, Caitlin O’Brien Shanley

So there it is, my brief, but heartfelt thank you to the City by the Bay. For now, the feelings are very big and I’m doing my best to process them and also get my mind ready for the adventures yet to come, not only this summer, but also for whatever the future holds for me back home.

Without further adieu, let the Summer of Shanley begin! I will be taking my memories and hitting the open road zig-zagging across the states to see what this beautiful country has to offer. After a quick stop in LA to spend some QT with my cousin, it’s off to Boulder City and the Hoover Dam…stay tuned!