[Editor’s note: This essay first appeared in the “Chapters of Our Lives” issue of PREMIUM Magazine, which featured personal storytelling.]

Nestled on my porch, a cup of coffee in one hand and binoculars in the other, I spent the spring watching my neighbors. I’ve been watching them for almost 20 years, and I can’t get enough of the drama, but this season’s storyline was hitting me harder than in years past.

I bought my house in 2004, a 1925 Craftsman-style surrounded by century-old Aleppo pines and Italian cypress in Banning, California — a pass-through city between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. The house was a wreck. I was in my early 30s and almost as much of a wreck. I was going to go to grad school, fix myself, fix the house and pass through just like everyone else, only with a tidy

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