In his early thirties, Nick made the decision to leave his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and start a new life (all over again) in Los Angeles, chasing music, his fiancee, and his dreams. Gone West is a miniseries chronicling this new adventure.

It might seem a little insane to just pack up and leave your comfortable Midwestern home and relocate to Los Angeles…especially when you only have a high school education, few job prospects, and only $1000 to your name. Yet for some reason, I feel compelled to do this, to test my mettle in these uncertain times. Why? Before I answer that I’ll tell you a little bit about myself and the events that led to my decision.

First off my name is Nick and truth be told I’m actually from L.A. I was born and raised there until I was 15. My parents divorced when I was 4 and I mostly lived with my mother and two older brothers in a town called Alhambra. When I got to high school, I decided to move in with my father and his second wife, Cindy, in a town called South Pasadena.

My dad and I had always had a good relationship, and I wanted to take the opportunity to form a deeper bond with him. He and his wife had a home based business at the time. This was in 1992, and California had just passed a law that required all businesses to have an OSHA plan in place. Basically, they were in the business of writing safety manuals for companies that didn’t already have one. I guess they did okay for awhile, but at some point the business dried up and they started having trouble paying the mortgage.

At that point, they decided to sell their home in South Pasadena and move to Cindy’s home state of Minnesota…the so-called “Twin Cities” of Minneapolis and St. Paul, to be exact. The reason being that they could get a lot of house for a lot less money, and with Cindy’s family around, we would already have a built-in network of support and family. They told me that I was free to stay behind with my mother, and I knew that if I didn’t like it I’d always be able to come back, so with little to lose I made the move.

I took to Minnesota almost immediately. The clean air, the lakes and trees. There were a lot fewer people, and less noise too. I did well in school and began playing bass guitar. After graduating I bounced around a lot…moving in with just about every friend I had at the time, all while working various jobs and pursuing a career in music. A few years went by before I decided to go to college for music production, and I moved back in with my Dad, who by this time was in the process of separating (and ultimately getting divorced) from Cindy. I did pretty well in college, even making the Dean’s List for a semester, but I lost my focus when my priorities moved more to partying and rocking out (usually in that order), and I eventually dropped out.

I stuck with the music; playing bass in a variety of bands. I worked a string of jobs in the restaurant industry, including serving and bartending. I delivered pizzas, too (a decent job with decent pay, by the way). Eventually, I met my lovely girlfriend Emily in June of 2005, and after nearly four years together, we decided to get married.

Now, it’s been nearly 10 years since I was in school. My musical ambitions still run strong but I’ve grown tired of constantly joining other people’s bands and working on their music. My career (if you want to refer to it that way) as a pizza man has grown stale and unfulfilling. I’ve mulled over many different ideas about what to do next, and after thinking long and hard and consulting with my fiancée, we’ve decided to move to southern California. The reasons are simple yet compelling:

1. We are both SICK of the Minnesota winters. If you’ve never experienced a real Midwest winter with –30 wind chills, trust me, they get pretty old.
2. We already have a built in network of support. Almost all of my family lives in southern California. My mother, brothers, sister, nephews, aunt, uncle, and cousins are all here, and after 16 years away, I’m ready to reconnect with them.
3. I have a great opportunity to do music with my older brother Mark and cousin Steve. Since they’re family, I suspect that we’ll have an easier time working together.
4. Even though the economy has seen better days, we both feel that the sheer number of job opportunities in So. Cal. will outweigh those available in Minnesota.

So that’s it! For better or worse, we’re going through with it. We feel that we’re young and strong enough to get ourselves there and wise enough to make things work on our terms (more or less). I departed the first week of June, with Emily to follow in late August.

It will be tough to be apart for so long, but she has to finish college (she’s wrapping up her Master’s thesis) and provide ample notice at her job. I will have my hands full finding a job and a place for us to live. I plan to journal our progress here in several stages. Please feel free to comment on our posts and offer any thoughts you might have. Stay tuned for the next installment and thanks for reading.

You may also like these stories:

Gone West: Wherein it is Revealed that My Temporary Hosts May Be Batshit Crazy

Gone West: My 20s for Sale

The Moral of the Story is…don’t be 14 (or 31) if you can avoid it

Could I Interest You in a Gently Used Kidney, Sir?

On Being a Grown-Up