PROMPTuesday #106: Turning Point, A Fork Stuck in the Road

You know how you look back on your life and recognize certain moments that changed things forever? How you could have gone this way or that way, but you choose the way over there, and you’re a different person because of it?

For me, that moment was when I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1996. I thought I’d stay in the Windy City forever, I really did, and when a psychic told me at a party in ’95 that I’d move “back to the sea,” I laughed. No way, I thought, NO WAY. I was not a SoCal kinda gal. I was of beer gardens and late-night hot dogs, of heavy woolen sweaters and salty shoes. But move I did, a scant year later. I’d like to say that many factors went into the decision to relocate, but it’s really that I had the “itch.” I needed to extricate myself from safety, from getting too comfortable and metaphorically fat. I was in an 18-month relationship with a tried-and-true Chicago boy, a nice but boring chap, and I needed OUT. OUT, I say. Not just from him, but from the things that kept me tethered. I knew on some level that if I didn’t get away from Chicago right then, I’d be there forever. And there was world I needed to see.

So I took a midnight train to the City of Angels. I re-assumed my job as a magazine editor in the Valley, and struck out on my own. A year later I met The Rock and everything changed. But my life really started transforming the moment I decided to move from the midwest.

How about you?

What was one of your life’s turning points?

Post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

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