We are looking for a space to rent in Santa Barbara. I knew, in coming here, it would be no small feat, but didn't quite realize how it would feel to be in it. With a budget of about $3000 a month at maximum, which could have bought me the house of my dreams in Louisville, we are most optimistically looking at a 2 bedroom apartment, or ideally a duplex or even a small stand alone home. It is bleak at best.

So far I've spent basically an entire calendar year looking at Craiglist/ Trulia/ Zillow postings and have gone to 6 showings. Two were laughably horrific. One was decent, but just joyless and in a questionable area. One was nice enough, but so close to the highway I could feel my ears ringing. Another one I loved the owner, wanted to talk with her and know her and have her know my babies, but with no closets and a terrible lay out, I had to admit the home itself, even with infinite charm, would make me nuts. And lastly, one of which I loved beyond all belief. It was perfect.

That one I built a home in, in my mind. I mentally bought a new buffet table for the entryway. I planned for a cluster of our Adirondack chairs and a fire pit in the quaint outdoor area. I dreamed up the layout of the girls' bedroom, anchoring the down easy chair in the middle of the room so I could nurse and hold babies in the night. We could walk to my favorite ice cream shop, be at my parents' house in five minutes, and were close enough to the highway that Nic's commute would be a breeze. The landlord was bordering on curt but seemed mildly charmed by my humor.

It felt so deeply right. My mom agreed.

And then, after several days of waiting to hear back, I received a clipped email, devoid of punctuation, that the place had been rented to another applicant.

I was crushed.

I've thought about this for days and days now. I keep thinking about that place.

And then suddenly it reminded me of Keven.

Keven's greatest failing was that his name was spelled like a typo. Otherwise I found him supremely charismatic, interesting, and attractive. We met at Brass Tacks in San Francisco, a thousand years ago now, when my sister came into town for less than 48 hours. We went to some bars, and at this one in particular, I ended up in a dynamic conversation with the poorly named Keven. I was witty and drunk enough to feel beautiful. He was smart and engaging. We talked and talked. And then he left... with his date.

He had apparently been on a first date with someone who proved much less interesting to him than me, and she had been very interesting to my sister, so in true rom com fashion, we swapped partners and chatted the night away.

When the conversations had waned, like a gentleman, Keven escorted his date home.

And then, like either the most ungentlemanly of gentleman or just perhaps like a true romantic, he had come back, immediately, to ask for my phone number.

In retrospect, I can't decide if it was charming or horrifying, but there was immediately and palpably enough between us that I was glad he had done so. Shortly thereafter, we went on our first date. I learned he was a Harvard graduate, a COO of an environmental policy company, and a lover of dogs. We drank good beer, laughed, ate an insane amount of food, and kissed, but just enough. It was easy and funny between us. It was smart and all just a little bit coy in a way that made me feel perfect.

We went on, oh, I don't know, a handful of dates and then he went to India for some reason or another. He last minute suggested I come along, which, of course, I could not. I was working two jobs and didn't even have a passport at the time, but how impossibly romantic the whole thing felt-- this smart and accomplished man-- for once not just a boy on a skateboard-- who felt so compelled by our connection to come back for me, to take me out to eat and drink nice things, to invite me to India. And plus, I just liked him. I liked to be with him.

I had not liked someone in so, so long. It felt exhilarating and fun. It felt easy. It felt right. I thought?

We exchanged emails the whole time he was gone— fervent, frequent, flirty emails. We went to a Giants game when he returned.

And then, like too many love stories end, especially in San Francisco, he basically ghosted me. I learned he was also dating someone else, which is fine, which is to be expected early on. But I think, in essence, he chose her and instead of telling me directly, he let things uncomfortably and painfully peter out. At some point he acknowledged it, after some time and a shrewd yet kind email from me, and I felt resolved about the whole situation. It had its place in the unfolding of things.

Today was the day I saw the place I loved the owner but not the place. It only made me extra sad about the place I dreamed up our fire pit and buffet table. I had such a feeling of loss about it all.

I came home and kept thinking about Keven. Why did I keep thinking about Keven?

Because, I realized, he, too, had seemed right. And in the end, he wasn't, because he didn't choose me too. I don't harbor any ill will about it. It was a flicker in time in the scheme of things, but I did feel that same loss of so much potential, so much imagining of spontaneous international trips and drinking fine wines and saying endlessly witty things to each other. Maybe it could have been glorious. But it wasn't.

He wasn’t my guy because he wasn’t my guy. And just the same, this place wasn’t my place, because it wasn’t my place.

You can feel like all the parts of something are right, but if they don’t choose you too, they’re not right for every single reason which comes down to not wanting you too, to not being because it wasn't.

After Keven, I dated someone pretty atrocious for a very short period of time. It feels unfair to say that about him now. He was kind, very kind, just not very smart or aware. He took me out, once, for an Italian dinner in North Beach, and then we went ice skating by the big Christmas tree in Union Square, because he knew I’d like both these things. He wanted to charm me.

He worshipped me, it seems, tried to tell me he loved me when it was far too soon to love me, when I asked him to please stop.

And I thought about settling. Kind of. Definitely not really but fleetingly, kind of. How easy it would be to be loved by someone, whom I felt always in control of. That feels ugly to say, but it’s true. It would have been easy for my ego, for my fragile sense of self, to be with someone because they wanted to be with me.

But I knew it was wrong and I, having been so recently hurt by indirectness, told him clearly. I like you, but I no longer want to date you. I do not love you.

I kept wondering how you'd ever know. When it was right. Every person I'd dated seemed right for some reason and wrong for others. Keven had seemed so right, and yet, when I was honest with myself, I felt some need to impress him. Not in a hopeful maybe-I-can-always-be-my-best-self way of being with someone new, but because he seemed like more of an adult than I was. In retrospect, the least adult thing a person could do is not have the decency to let someone go directly, but in the midst of things, it felt that way, that I had somehow snuck into an echelon above me. And the ice skating boy was wrong in every way, but I tried for a while to tell myself he wasn't, because, shouldn't we all do something silly and easy and fun? And couldn't that just be love?

How would you ever know? How could you know?

I decided to give up. I decided I would really really never find someone to love.

A month or so later, I met Nic. A few months after that, I moved to Louisville. And now, six years later, we have two babies, a pretty darn sweet love story, and have come full circle back to California.

I don't think this is true for every love story, but it is for mine: I knew I loved Nic the minute I met him. I felt vulnerable and sweaty and imperfect and dumb and the most impossibly beautiful and seen of anyone in the entire world. He twirled me, and I KNEW. I knew. I knew. I knew.

Six years later, I am still getting to know him, to understand all of what that immediate, instinctual knowing meant, what I was looking for, how I needed him, how he has helped hone my life into something the most beautiful. I never could have pieced it all together then, but the instinct was there. Something deep in my gut and heart said, YES.

That didn't mean it was easy. We have had many many many hard times as a couple. We are still working out how to best communicate and understand each other, how to work as a team, how to not take things personally, how to separate our personal shit from our feelings about each other, how to allow them to coexist, how to physically coexist, how to co-parent, how to give and take. All of it. Our love required a cross country move, an extended period of time in a urine-soaked house with basically no furniture, and many hours spent navigating the weirdness of my giving up what was most dear to me: California, my family.

And yet, I knew.

I knew.

I knew because he was him. And in spite of, and also because of, all the problematic things, he chose me too.

I knew because I knew and he chose me too.

I didn't have to ask questions. When questions were asked, I still knew.

And so today, after being charmed by a house that I could make seem really right in my head that really wasn't right in reality, I remembered to listen to my gut and to say, that was not it. And even the house I loved so much was not it, because it didn't choose me back.

I feel like I've spent a lifetime second-guessing myself. I can easily overload myself with information and rationalizations. I seek input from others. When I'm looking for a certain kind of feedback, I unwittingly seek it from those, whom I know will say exactly what I want to hear. I sway my decisions accordingly. I get so deep in thinking and convincing and explanations that I lose what's so deep and yet so accessible within me: my instinct, my knowing.

I have to value that. And then I have to value the response too. I have to listen when I choose something or someone, and it doesn't choose me back. It's not confusing, it's not not obvious. The feeling we get from people and experiences is clear. Some things resonate. They feel clear and energizing and hopeful and right. Even if they're not easy. Some things deaden us. They feel exhausting and depleting and confusing. We have to justify, create caveats, excuse. Our heads know. Our bodies know. And we ignore it, because we want things to be right before they’re right.

This is all a very long way of saying, I haven't found us a home, yet. I have this sneaking part of me that insists I settle. That I live somewhere that feels not quite right, because it's insanely expensive and competitive to find somewhere to live here. So surely I would settle. But I keep reminding myself, my expectations are not absurd. I'm not asking to live somewhere huge or fancy or elaborate. I'm not asking to pay too little. I'm just asking for exactly what's right for me.

And I refuse to make a choice out of fear or desperation. I won't let it confuse me. I am not scared. I will know when it's right, when it feels right, and when it chooses me too.

I'm so grateful for the shit that doesn't work out. I'm grateful for disappointment and fear and longing, because every time I've felt those things, I have also been able to look back and understand their place in the scheme of things. I am grateful that I'm beginning to know when I know, to trust that. It is not unclear, it is not hard to discern, it is not murky.

I know.

I know when I know.

And until then, I will keep looking, and waiting, and trusting.

Amen.