On Monday, I started the drive from Los Angeles to Oaxaca, moving my whole existence 40 hours south.

Unlike when I drove through Mexico the first time, this time, I know exactly how hard it is. This time, I have one less rabbit. This time, my partner and I are breaking up, not starting our relationship.

I haven’t felt “at home” for a year and a half, since I left for that first trip in search of a new life.

But this time, I know exactly where home is. It’s waiting for me. I just have to get there. 

I’m 2 days into 2 weeks of this solo drive. And this time, I am really feeling the solo-ness.

As an only child and recovering independence addict, I used to do everything by myself and not think twice about it. 3 months driving alone through Mexico? No problem. 

But something changed. Since opening myself up to deeper connection, finding my people, and letting myself receive love and care, it’s not so easy being alone anymore. 

I was so used to it for so long, I didn’t realize what I was missing. I didn’t realize how much it hurt. But now those scabs are fresh, pink skin. And I FEEL it.

I feel everything so much - the heartbreak, the incremental progress, the sweetness of companionship - life is at full volume. And I am trying to meet it with gratitude, in addition to crushing heartbreak, fear and exhaustion. 

My companion on this long drive is a seven-year-old rabbit, Gnocchi.

This time last week, I thought she was dying. She’s recovering from health issues that left her unable to breathe and unable to move. I had to wake up every few hours to clear out her nose. I had to hold up her head so she could drink.

Oh my god, how precious life is when you think it’s over. When you think you might not have another day, every moment has so much gravity. Every flop, every cuddle, every shared glance, almost wasn’t and may not be tomorrow.

But she’s getting better. A couple days ago, she started hopping again. I’m crying right now looking at her sitting contentedly under the desk in this hotel room.

I cry when I think about how grateful I am to have her with me on this long journey.

I cry when she drinks water. I cry when she’s stable enough to groom herself. I cry when she gets comfortable and rests.

I am so affected by her every movement, because I am ACUTELY aware of her fragility. And I have lost some of the beings I’ve loved most this last few months. So every little development, every little blessing, every little connection, hits my heart so hard. 

On this drive with this precious little creature, I can’t plan more than a few hours ahead. I have to live in this exact moment, slow down and take it easy enough to actually enjoy it. I have to surrender to the absolute enormity of existing in a body on Planet Earth.

I can’t take anything for granted. I can’t take anything too seriously.

The point is to feel it and enjoy it. Not necessarily to sob for all 40 hours looking at her weepy eye and bald chin and wobbly legs and stress about if she’s living or dying. 

Because she’s living AND dying. We all are. 

So I cry.

And I kiss her soft forehead.

And I laugh when she can’t get back up after a sharp turn.

This has been a season of tremendous loss for me. Death, death, death death death. It kicked off in October when Cosmo, my longtime rabbit companion, died at 9 years old. 

Two weeks ago, my maternal grandmother “Gaga” died. She was 102.

We had a special relationship. She was my only grandparent. I was her first grandchild and her only daughter’s only child. That gave me a head-start in the specialness department. 

I think we understood each other on a deeper level than other members of our family understood us. 

I’m not close with the rest of my family. Her death marks a whole life I’m leaving behind.

We played cards, watched game shows and went to brunch at Sizzler. We sat on the couch and just held hands. We fantasized about taking a road trip down to Florida to find out how her secret lover passed away. When I was in college, she told me I was her best friend.

I don’t know if I’d be alive without her. (Obviously, she had to have my mom for me to exist.) But she was a source of unconditional love that I didn’t feel anywhere else. 

I remember one very low night in high school when I considered running away, hoping to walk out into the road and get hit by a car. I thought of her, and I stayed. 

My mom denied my request for therapy, but Gaga stood up for me and made sure it happened.

When I was a baby, I had a big, nasty black scab over my belly button (cough, mother wound, cough). She nursed it until it healed.

I love her so much.

I am also breaking up with my partner, moving everything I own out of the home we built together in Los Angeles, and taking it to Mexico. Leaving another life behind. 

He was my family and my home for the last year and a half, while I figured out how to make the jump. When we visited our families on the east coast, he helped me make peace with my past. When Cosmo died, he helped me bury him. He played the piano in our backyard while I sobbed over his body, circled with crystals. I watched the incense burn, carrying his soul off in billowing smoke. 

It’s been a lot of death. But death makes room for new life.

There is a bright, warm love on the other side of this tunnel. And the creatures that got me here mean everything.

It’s strange to love them so much and have to let them go. There’s a lot to grieve. So I wrote a poem.

Their graves mark the places 

I no longer go.

The people and spaces 

that are no longer home.

Now I’m a traveler, 

my shell on my back.

Finding love along the way, 

no more love-plated traps.

Walking alone, 

I really, really miss them.

But I trust my heart, 

and the steps it has taken.

I didn’t think this was how it would be. 

It looked so different at the start.

But I’ve come a long way. 

Now I can’t see back that far.

Sometimes it’s too hard

to carry this load.

So I put it all down,

and just lie in the road.

That’s why I need them,

I can’t do it alone.

But that’s when they’re with me,

when I just let go.

What is home?

This past year, I traveled in search of it, moved everything I own into someone else’s, and buried the only creature on this planet that felt like it for sure. 

I’ve had to scrap all my old definitions and start over. 

I recently asked a client to create an image of the “home” she wanted to come back to within herself. And with one of my teachers, I am embarking on a yearlong program called “homecoming.” 

I want to answer this question for myself. I don’t think I’m done. But here’s a poem where I tried.

Home to me

I open the window

to a wave of warm, wood-baked air,

a smell that invites me to breathe. 

That

feels like home

to me.

Sunlit leaves

that special color green.

Salted air

where the Ocean scrubs me clean.

Her Majesty Herself,

wet and wild queen,

sometimes reflects the sky,

sometimes reflects the trees,

sometimes reveals the mud,

hidden underneath.

Fresh, raw dirt

like buried treasure

my hands both love to squeeze.

I’ll always be collecting rocks, 

the way I still hug trees.

The delight of seeing bunny hops,

will never, ever leave.

The seams are raw,

the cloth unfinished,

but this blanket 

holds my dreams.

And so I can rest,

remembering Earth’s palette

is painted all over me.

Well, I’m finally home from this trip…home…

It’s been a long stretch of not really knowing where to call “home.” 

In spirit, I moved to Mexico last year. 

In practice, I’ve been back and forth and all over. I miss Mexico every day I’m not there, but something else is happening.

3 weeks before my first trip to Mexico, after boldly declaring that my chapter in Los Angeles was complete, I met Ike.

We kept in touch, got to know each other deeply and built a connection that has humbled me to my core.

We communicate seamlessly, we do crazy, tantric energy work that catapults us into our highest selves, and, oh, we’re one soul split into two bodies somehow. (Not soulmates, twin flames. Look it up, it’s wild stuff.)

After my most recent trip to Mexico, I moved out of my apartment and into his…in LA. 

You may be thinking, “I thought you were done with LA.” Yeah. Me too. 

But also, moving in with him felt right. It was easy. We fit together.

Ike feels like home. And Mexico feels like home. 

I’ve been grappling with that for a year now. Trying to figure out what to say when people ask, “where do you live?” Well, I live in Mexico, and the person containing the other half of my soul lives in Los Angeles.

It’s not simple or conclusive. It doesn’t fit into a tidy box when I’m asked these questions at cocktail parties.

But maybe, that’s not how life works. We don’t really know what the fuck is going on. We just get out there and do it. Get dirty. Forge a new path where there wasn’t one because your soul demands it. 

The last year has brought the most aliveness I’ve ever felt.

I’m about to go back to Mexico. I will miss Ike. It hurts to pull apart. I’m also excited. To swim in the ocean every day. To sweat in the oppressive heat. To soak up the spirit. To grow my friendships. To keep embracing the wilderness of the unknown.

Home is where my heart is alive.

It won’t always make sense. But I FEEL IT. And that’s what matters.