I left my heart...

Fire sometimes pretty.

So you may not have noticed, or rather the ether that I type into might not care, but I have moved to Australia.

Not visit, not vacationing, but I have moved to Australia with my soon-to-be wife.

For most (mainly family) this came as a shock even though I have been telling them for a year that I was leaving. I just don't think anyone thought it was real. In fact, I think they think it's still not real, that I'm not there like I have been for the past thirty seven years.

I have come to be with my wife, I tried to get a career started in the States, but to no avail. My wife, who has been my biggest supporter in life and in work, has waited patiently for me to see if I can get something/anything in my field. It was time for me to be with her. I have been with her for six years, and that's six years too long not being able to turn to her every morning, to feel her feet tucked under my leg as we sit on the couch, to hold her in my arms for no other reason than I passed her in the kitchen. So when people ask me how I'm able to just up and leave the world I've known for so long, I tell them quite frankly, "It was easy, cause of her."

But to be clear, that doesn't mean it was a choice with no weight. I have loved every aspect of San Francisco, of all the places from around the world I have visited, there is no place like it.

And I'm not talking about the bridge everyone knows, the cable cars that people think we ride all the time, or the street that is really gay (and if you've never been, you should see it, it's quite happy).

No, what I love about that town is the people. The guy who works at McDonald's on Bayshore who remembers what you ordered last month you were there, the old couple who needed a ride to the bus stop to catch a bus going to the casinos, the homeless guy who offered me change when I needed one for the meter, the guy who gives my grandmother bags of free fruit just cause he can.

A city is made of the folks who truly live there, not in the buildings they reside in. I love that town. I will always love that town.

But I'm not married to that town. And as much as I'll miss it, I left my heart with my wife.

And between one of the greatest towns in the world, and the most amazing woman on Earth, that town stands no chance.

I'll miss you SF, I'll miss you my family, I'll miss you my friends. High on a hill, you all call to me.

But at the end of the day, I left my heart somewhere between a didgeridoo and that ridiculously enormous spider that is about to steal my comp...