No Offense San Francisco, But I Hate You.

Then again, it isn't really you, it’s me.

I just don’t understand you. You confuse me.

You’re this incomprehensible beast of a thing rearing up around me each day and I, caught in the stupor of disorienting self-assuredness blamed you for my misery. I believed you to be hate-worthy and then, I hate you for it. I’m stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let me acquiesce that there are those who love you; they who possess this zip code pride are the same who boast of your big city “charms”:

• Driving through your traffic is where I was lucky enough to get cut-off by several of your taxi drivers, forcibly stranded half-way on your crosswalk as your lights rushed from green to yellow to red, and one of your disgruntled pedestrians smacked the roof and windows of my car as he crossed. I later found a crack across my windshield.
• Your monetarily-bereft citizens, human and animal alike mistake your sidewalks for porcelain, but they’re just paved walkways like any other; covered in blemishes. Your citizens don’t care, they flock to your bars for your whiskey and beer.
• Your public transit system where my girlfriend was pick-pocketed by a man wearing a Giants sweater “because everyone’s a little tipsy and there’s just a swelling feeling of hope in the air.” Or, the wafting smell of urine in the vents.

Charming.

And yet, I don’t want to hate you. I chose to come to you; to be with you. I felt something.

Maybe we got off on the wrong foot, you and I. Maybe you have to be the way you are to help me change and grow into a better person; to teach me to be more cautious while driving, walking, and traveling; to force me to recognize my own shortcomings.

Growing up in the ‘burbs made me weak, complacent; made it easy for me to fail again and again. Surrounded by my parents, my siblings, my friends, my crutches. I was safe, protected. They picked a path for me and I didn't have to walk on my own. I kept falling down, but I was never afraid.

For the first time in my life, failure is not an option. There is no safety net, and you won’t hesitate to break me if I fall. Here with me now is a little brown dog who depends on me, and a girlfriend who trusts in my decisions. Scared as I was, I decided to come to you. Scared as I am now, I've decided to make us work.