Eastbound, But Not Down.

Now do you believe that you were born
in Southern California?

"It's gonna be so rad to raise a California boy".

The fact that I just said "rad" should clue you into how firmly entrenched we've become out here.

Thoughts of spending a Saturday playing in the snow at Big Bear and a Sunday building castles made of sand played out over and over.

There were dreams of Taylor playing baseball year round in the fertile MLB proving grounds that is Southern California, working his way up through Little League, whatever comes after that, High School ball, College Ball, and then signing his first minor league deal on draft day 2030.

Or knocking heads with the neighborhood boys in Pop Warner, then moving up through the High School system that has produced so many NFL superstars.

How about now?

And hey, if sports weren't his bag, he could always follow his Dad into the unforgiving up and down world that is the entertainment industry, right? We'd enroll him in the Orange County High School of the Arts and he'd get a job entertaining tourists at Knott's Berry Farm or Disneyland on weekends.

Or maybe the local music lore would inspire him to pick up a guitar and learn how to melt faces.

The possibilities seemed endless, and it was thrilling to think about what might be. But alas, like any good screenplay, we're not even halfway through the first act and we're faced with our first twist.

"Babe, I have to tell you something I've been thinking about".

That's how it started.

Well, I guess it started some time in October when the life of a freelance editor bit me in the ass. Here I was, all snug in what I thought was the safe confines of my celebrity-red-carpet-cutting bubble, far from the reach of the reality of this shit ass economy. The people's appetite for this crap is insatiable, surely I wouldn't be affected, right? Wrong. Months came and went and I wasn't being paid for the work I'd done and I refused to work on anything new until I was paid in full so I was working maybe two weeks of every month for a few months consecutively. There was one stretch where I didn't work for an entire month, and that hurt.

It was very discouraging not being able to share
Taylor with our family this Christmas.

To be honest, this wasn't the first financial scare I'd had in the past two years, and I'd started looking for different work at that first sign that the ship may be sinking - to no avail, obviously. So this latest kick in the nuts, coupled with Becky being (at the time) in the last stages of pregnancy and off work, we'd gone through everything we had saved and we were selling shit on eBay just to make rent.  Around the same time I was told by my client that she wouldn't be able to pay me for full time work anymore. Great. Now what?

Then Taylor came, and then Thanksgiving, and then....what the hell are we still doing out here in Call e fornia, three thousand miles away from all of our family?

"I think I want to move back to PA for a while" I said. The look on Becky's face at that moment immediately told me that we were on the same page. She'd been thinking about it too. Phew. There were tears, hugs, and then...it was official.

In the weeks since ultimately making this HUUUUGGEE life decision, a lot of thoughts, emotions, and ideas have come to light. This decision is far from solely financially based. In fact, I can honestly say that even if our livelihoods hadn't been ripped out from under us (I was back working full time almost immediately after sending out word of the impending move, fyi. Apparently I was told there wasn't any money left "out of frustration". Crazy, right?), we'd still be eastbound. Just maybe not quite so soon.

I want Taylor to grow up like I did. I want him to be able to tear off on his bicycle without his Mom worrying that he'll end up on the 405 playing a real life game of Frogger. I want him to grow up to appreciate hard work, and what it takes to earn the shit that he wants. I want to take him to Penn State football and Washington Redskins games. I want to hike sections of the Appalachian Trail with him. I want to take him to Rose Valley and show him where I fell in the lake. I want to teach him how to skip stones across the Loyalsock. I want him to learn about the American Revolution, the so-called Founding Fathers, the birth of this country and The Civil War, all at their respective sources. As much as I despise the city, I want to throw snowballs at him in Central Park after we pay our respects to John Lennon at Strawberry Fields and then together we can take the subway over to the Bronx, grab a slice, and then piss on Yankees Stadium together. And most importantly, I want him to know his family more than just over a webcam.

Look out PA, we're bringing a Taylor and a Joey with us.

So, the rumors are true. We're leaving everything we've worked so hard to build out here behind - our home, our friendships, and our careers - and for the benefit of our son, we're moving back to PA.

I'm going to miss this place tremendously. Our friends, the weather, the beach, the mountains...all of it (but not the traffic, exorbitant cost of living, or the smog that slowly chokes us every minute of every day).

Who knows where we'll ultimately end up (I think the Discovery Channel headquarters in Washington D.C. would be a great place to edit every day), but I know in my heart that this is the right thing to do for our son and for our family right now. And frankly, I'm ready to be small town again. I'm ready for four seasons again. I'm absolutely ready to be near family again.

We couldn't have seen this coming 7 years ago when Becky and I jumped in her little Kia Spectra to take on whatever was in store for us - just a couple of small town kids with big dreams of proving everyone wrong and making it in California. We made it, babe. We made it, and now we're leaving on our terms. We're doing this because we want to. Not because we have to.