I guess old habits are really hard to break. In the 12 years since I graduated from high school, for about 8 of those years I’ve been doing the same routine: go to school/work during the week, then go back home to Vallejo on the weekend, & repeat. In college, I had plenty of good reasons to go back home: I had work at The Good Guys (in Fairfield, then later on in Concord), I had to do laundry (basically free at home), get food & money from the parents, hang out with my friends (we all went to colleges in different cities, but Vallejo was still our “home base”), and to see my family (the parents and the cousins).

Then after I graduated from college, and got a job in Emeryville, I lived at home, but planned on moving on into a place of my own, until the whole unemployment thing. Then when I got hired by Caltrans in Fresno and stayed with Chris in Merced, I still came home every weekend despite the 2 hour drive. That one’s a no-brainer, since it’s Merced: nothing to do there but drive hella far to go do something someplace else.

Now I’m in working in Sac, and I’ve got a place of my own. I live near one of my friends for the 1st time since college. Yet I still go home every weekend, primarily to hang out with the friends & cousins. I was thinking about this the other day, and it struck me as hella weird, that I hadn’t gone into “Sac Mode” yet, if that makes any sense. I know Vallejo will always be home base, but I think I really need to kick the habit of automatically going back to Vallejo on the weekends and try to make a life for myself up here in Sac. What or how I’m going to do that, I have no idea, but I have to make at least make the effort.