Unquiet Desperation

A number of things are coming to an end today, but the most significant at that we’re finishing moving out of our apartment in Woodland Hills, and that today is my last day at Mahalo.

Mahalo

I’m leaving Mahalo because we’re leaving L.A…not the other way around. It was a tough choice, but I believe it was the right one.  I’ve built a team I can be proud of at Mahalo, and I have every confidence that they’ll do great things in the future. The truth of the matter is that I cannot manage this excellent team from a distance. A Lead Developer needs to be on site, dealing with the day-to-day running of things.  I cannot do that if I’m moving, pure and simple. There’s no drama, no feud, nothing like that…everything is ending on good terms.

I’m going to miss the whole company, no doubt about it. These are good, hardworking people. They deserve to succeed. I cannot wait to see what they are going to do next.

Leaving Los Angeles

I’ve written a little bit about why we’re leaving L.A. in a previous post, but there’s more to it that just economics and schools. Los Angeles might as well be a different planet when you’re coming from the midwest.  There are many who have moved here and loved it, and I can see why they would. The difficulty for use was that we did it with a family.  If Cathy and I had moved out here when we re newly married, I think things might have gone differently.

Some friends here told us what they’d like most: to own a small house with a good sized yard in a good school system. They followed that up with, “but this is L.A.”  As time went by, I heard this from other people — they all wanted what we took for granted, what we gave up to move here. And many of them had given up on ever achieving it, because “this is L.A.”

We’re moving back to our families, our oldest friends, to neighborhoods that we love, schools we know we can trust, and places that we’ve loved for years. We took so much for granted…that won’t be happening again.

People will poke fun about leaving the Big City, but that’s fine with me. Cleveland is home, and always will be.

New Eyes

Some folks have asked me if this move is bittersweet. No…not really. I achieved what I wanted to achieve at Mahalo, and I learned what I needed to learn from L.A.  I’m coming away better for it. If I never left Cleveland, I would always wonder what would have happened if I had. It’s been costly, yes, but I feel I’ve gained far more than I’ve lost.

I’m looking forward to seeing home with new eyes. That alone will be amazing.