This week 10 years ago, I packed up my little honda civic (Tellulah Jones! if you know you know!) and traded in my east coast upbringings for west coast beginnings. I was 24 at the time and itching for newness, to shake it up, to immerse myself in a totally different kind of environment unfamiliar to anything I ever knew.

Both of my brothers drove me out on a week long roadtrip leaving from our parents house in Media, PA to Eugene OR…which was great, hilarious and comforting all at once. We kept a blog on blogspot called #rockinwiththedobkins across America which was basically like Instagram before Instagram and the shining spotlight post was an epic YouTube video of us lipsyncing “Teenage Dream” in which my brother stole the show and I lived out my dreams of being a backup singer all in the backseat of Tellulz (message me for proof).

Like this photo, a lot of that week has become a blur, but I vividly remember dropping my brothers off at the airport in Portland on August 20, 2010. The drive back to Eugene was the loneliest I’ve ever felt. I cried. I questioned. I started anew.

I sometimes like to think about superpowers---on the smallest, most practical scale, but also on the wildly, most imaginative scale. I don’t know what you’d call this superpower I’d like to posses, but here’s what it’d be: the power to go back in time and hang out with your younger self…or anyone you know’s younger self. I mean…I think I’d get a real kick out of hanging out with the 24 year old version of my Mom. I also think it’d get a real kick out of hanging out with the 24 year old version of myself on this night, roaming Eugene in a red polka-dotted hoodie. and truly just to hang out---I wouldn’t offer advice or “predict” the future. I’d just want to be present with her.

Ten years ago feels like yesterday and---yep, a decade ago. My path since has further led me to all the right and unexpected places. I credit this particular time (🔝)—August 2010—to the leap that launched a thousand more leaps and hey: yay to that.