Driving through Inglewood and Koreatown, I nearly believed it. Driving in a new city always has that effect on me: I feel capable, powerful, self-sufficient, and brave. I momentarily allowed myself to slip into the false comfort of believing that all of my problems were back in Texas and now I was nearly 1,400 miles away. By the time I arrived at my hotel room just before 2 am, LA had taken on a new significance for me. Nothing—no looming deadlines or work, no fruit fly infestation, no pile of clothes in the hamper—and no one (not even the man I loved so deeply back in Texas, who had been at the center of this trip when I planned it) could change the fact of my turning 34 Saturday. Incapable of changing my impending birthday, I resolved that these concerns were my Austin life—unable to touch my weekend in LA, & therefore unable to ruin my birthday. In some ways, the belief I could be someone else somewhere else, someone with brand new problems, presented a luscious temptation—so much so that I’d already started sketching out a new life for myself outside of Austin. I imagined that anywhere else, the sight of a black Nissan Altima passing me would be neutral and unnoticeable (instead of a gut punch). But as the saying goes: everywhere you go, there you are.

I’d actually done such a good job of planning a trip my ex boyfriend would enjoy that laying down in the plush bedding of my luxury hotel, I thought, “he would have liked this room.” A handful of comedians he liked stopped off at the comedy show I bought tickets for and when the comedy club staff brought over the shirt I bought for him way back when I purchased the tickets, I hastily gave it to a friend to rid myself of the reminder. I woke up Saturday to the news that there was a shooting in downtown Austin the night before, on the same block as a couple of his nightly haunts. I needed to know that he was okay so I asked him. When he responded, he said he was fine and thanked me for checking.

He gave me exactly the information I’d asked for and still, somehow the bareness of it left me feeling wounded. I’m still not sure what I hoped he would say, but something about his response left me feeling lonely throughout an entire hour-long drive to Malibu where I met my friends for a decadent lunch of sushi and champagne cocktails. In between bites of king crab and black truffle shaved over salmon sashimi, the loneliness still managed to creep in. I cried the entire duration of my drive back to LA.

My other problems found me, too: an email from my graduate school advisor said I had to re-enroll in a master’s report course, my mom misplaced my condo keys and was thus unable to check on the cats, a student came to my discussion section and refused to leave early, a person insisted on reaching my boss and I had to respond to their request despite multiple attempts to put it off until Monday.

Sunday, I checked out of my hotel and, hoping to recapture some of my earlier enthusiasm, decided to take a joy ride through LA before making my way to the airport. I hadn’t outrun my problems: I failed to eat, pray, love my way out of my heartache and busy life. But as I drove through the warm LA afternoon bursting with bougainvillea and paletera men selling slices of bright pink papaya, I decided it was okay, anyway. All of it—the chores waiting for me back in my condo, the school deadlines, the jobs—were a part of a life I’d carefully curated for myself. All of them were parts of my life I still very much wanted, even in their more troubled moments. The break up and heartache, too, were brought about by my own insistence that I deserve tenderness, honesty, and thoughtfulness. In the face of my loneliness, I must still insist that I’m inherently worthy of these things.

I arrived back in Austin and saved my chores for Monday. I showered and washed my face. I ignored the pile of clean linens I hadn’t put back on my bed and climbed into the mess of sheets I’d left to keep the cats off my mattress while I was away. I plugged my laptop into its charger. Some of the things plaguing me are so small and easy to resolve: I can make my bed in the morning, mop during my lunch break, make a trap for the fruit flies. Still some of them will require patience and planning—like my academic load and the emails waiting for my answers at nine. And there are those that I can’t change, but which will surely get better with time, like the thing about the Nissan Altimas; I can’t outrun it so there’s no sense in uprooting myself for the sake of trying. Anywhere else in the world right now, the sight of them would still remind me of riding around in the passenger seat of my ex’s car. In the meantime-in-between-time, the day when they’ll just be another car to me is a day I’m looking forward to.