This is how visiting Los Angeles makes me feel: embarrassed and on the verge of tears from leftover emotion. Embarrassed because it has been too long, I surely can’t feel this way anymore. Because it is stupid to still care about someone who clearly is not only willing to let me go, but will hold the door open as I step past him. Because the last time I brought it up, an old friend said, “Girl, let it go. Damn.” Yes, somehow, the wounds are still fresh, and it is mortifying.

One saving grace about coming back to LA, and the only part that makes it bearable, is that I know I always have a home here with a few best friends who will take care of me, house me, and drive my car-less ass around. Two of them, in particular, I can count on for almost anything. They have been there through four years of crying, guilt, neuroticism, and all those other fun things about college. They have watched me fall in and out of love (not too many times, I promise) and seen me grow from a shy, awkward freshman to an outspoken, still awkward member of the working class. In other words, they have been there for every step of the way, and now that I am fifteen hundred miles away, they still manage to take care of me.

It troubles me to consider how many instances in which they have had to rescue me, escaping to a frozen yogurt shop or taking me into their homes. Perhaps it is knowing that they do all of these things, and yet I don’t seem to have gotten any better—there is shame in knowing that. Despite all of the great love that they have given me, I still seek (and often fail to find) a romantic kind of love that is as lasting and steadfast as our friendship. When I come back to Los Angeles, I am immediately grateful for my friends who treat me as if I never left. But that rush of recollection includes the memories of those embarrassing moments, those times when I am asked to read aloud so that the tears willingly come flowing out. All at once, I can remember the times that I have been saved, but am embarrassed for having necessity to be “saved” in the first place.

In this way, Los Angeles has become somewhat stained for me. It will be a long time before I see LA as a place where a lot of good things have happened, without all of the bad to weigh the experience down. But hey, at least this is only temporarily. As new memories are built and strong enough to cover up bits of heartache, I will get better. The wounds will heal, over and over, and as the Sex and the City quote so wisely implies, I will get through it, if only with the help of my incredible friends.