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We moved here with the hopes, dreams, and blind aspirations of two newlywed lovers longing to make an impact on the world before us. Now, four years later, we return home to Texas still filled with hopes and dreams but now longing for a quieter life, and one in which our new baby will understand the importance of family and breathe the clean air of the hill country. We leave this city in the hands of those who understand how to balance the busyness and the personal that we just quite couldn’t get a handle on. We love Los Angeles and the friends we’ve made here, but despite four years and several moves trying to make this mass of people and cars feel like home, it never has. We felt like we were chasing a stability that didn’t exist.

For me, it says something about the town I live in when the only thing I will miss—aside from friends—is the Arclight, free SAG screenings, Yosemite National Park, and the Eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada. (If you’ve never driven highway 395 from Mojave to Tahoe, do it now.)

So with my beautiful wife and the quickly growing child inside her, enough money saved for a small cushion, and a fulfilled lease, we will be in Austin, Texas next week. We are not giving up nor are we leaving our professions here. We’re just down-shifting the gears a bit to slow the pace. She will act. I will continue to edit and write. I don’t want to make this an extended essay on what we do and don’t like about LA or all the reasons we’re moving, but I’ll give you two things that have stuck with me over the last month since our final decision to pick up and move:

1. At our last OB/GYN appointment with our doctor here one of the nurses was quite shaken up and tearful. When she entered our room to take my wife’s vitals she said, “Oh, please don’t mind me, I’m not sick I’m just sad. My aunt just died, I found out this morning.” After we expressed our sympathy she told us that she always meant to go visit her in the last few years but just never found the time. I want to spend time with my extended family. I see them rarely. All my vacation is spent seeing immediate family members. I grew up with cousins all around and solid relationships with my grandparents. I want that for my child. Having a baby really does change everything. It’s like a switch flips on the instant you discover there is a little one coming. And you want every blessing and tiniest fraction of the big pool of love you’ve been gifted with to pass on to your progeny.

2. At one of my last visits to In-N-Out Burger (I’ll miss this too) the car in front of me at the drive thru had a bumper sticker that read:

Take A Risk, Never Die Wondering

The double meaning of this statement for both my time here in Los Angeles and the new life to come as we begin anew in Austin is staggering to me.

Truly, I’m now on the road to find out. Now, at the close of my sojourn here, it was quick as the flash of smoke after a match is extinguished.