August 2023

Celebrating 75

TO SAN DIEGO, WITH LOVE We asked locals to share their stories about finding love in the city—whether that be with a life partner, a fur baby, or themselves. These are their words, kicked off by our digital editor’s own love letter to SD.

San Diego, I wasn’t sure I’d like you. You with your bright eyes, pink sunsets, and strangers waving hello. Me with my cynicism, whiskey neats, and Sylvia Plath quotes. It wasn’t love, not at first.

I came here from the walkable streets of San Francisco—the Kerouac fostering, Dolores Park sitting, Golden Gate dreaming, cultural food mecca of the Bay. You? You were too… happy .

At 25, you nurtured my career and watched as black-and-white bylines began to shape my story. We grew closer.

Over the years, you taught me that high heels and the Gaslamp are rarely a good mix, but there’s nothing a Rocky’s burger and seaside cry can’t fix. That PB has an end date, open mics at Lestat’s are a rite of passage, and tacos taste better on the side of a Mexican road. I discovered that paddling out for the OB Fourth of July fireworks is scary as hell, but worth every ounce of tequila. I learned how to sail with your skyscrapers in the background, trained with 200-person run clubs for my first marathon, endured a f*cking pandemic, and found that I had fallen for you without even realizing it.

Fourteen years later and here we are. Older, softer, brighter, waving at strangers.

– Nicolle M., 39, Ocean Beach

58 AUGUST 2023

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