TwoDC Turns Five

It has been five years since J and I started TwoDC.  That's a long time.  It's longer than most of us spend in high school or college.  It's longer than a Presidential term.  And in this case, it has outlasted our time on the East Coast.  We've often written about our California roots.  And now we're writing about our return home.

This is easily the hardest post I've had to write.  It was difficult to leave Washington but returning to California was made easy by focusing on our exciting future.  This post forces me to look back at all we left behind and close the door on some of the best times of our life.

We've settled into a new home, a new job (for B) and a new understanding of the meaning of cold winter weather (50s and a light drizzle).  However, I've not settled with the fact that DC is not part of my daily life any more.  I miss the sparkling white marble of the monuments.  I miss being surrounded by passionate people who hope to change the world.  I miss the convenience of the Express and Metro (yeah, I said it).  I miss standing on the Mall and feeling big and small at the same time.  I miss the community of Ultimate frisbee.  I miss the snow (but not the humidity).  I miss the view from our condo that overlooked a bustling, dynamic and diverse city.  I miss the access to the rest of the East Coast and to Europe.  I miss being able to walk to anything and everything.  I miss the friends we made that became our second family.  And I miss exploring DC and writing about it in this blog.

This makes blog post number 415.  Looking at the backlog of half-written posts, it is clear that the end is near.  Perhaps that's why it has taken me so long to respond to J's reminders that I owe her some Second Thoughts on our last few posts.  I've not been a good writing partner lately.  Maybe it is because I don't want it to end.  More likely, I just don't have the words to do justice to the town, to the experience, to the time of my life that was so memorable.  

Art is littered with this very problem.  People infinitely more talented have struggled to capture the idea of transitioning from one stage of life to the next.  I've sat here for the last half hour thinking of what song lyric, Shakespearean sonnet, movie quote, classical painting or trite cliche would best sum up my feelings, but there are none.  Our time in DC was our time.  It was wonderfully unique and a real blessing to be able to share with you.  So I guess the only thing left to say is thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

J Says

Hello? Anyone out there? With the demise of Google Reader and a 6 month lapse in posts, I'm fairly sure I'm writing to my parents and perhaps one PR rep who will undoubtedly email us the same press release 6 times (oh the restaurant is creating a special day-after-Presidents-Day menu? You don't say...).

As B mentioned, we live in California now.  After homesickness crept into about 397 of our 415 posts, we realized that we needed to be closer to our families.  But, as I type this, my eyes are welling with tears as I think about the family we left behind in DC.  When we arrived in DC in 2007, we were newlyweds with a brand new condo, new jobs, no friends in town and no clue where to get a good meal.  In 2013, when we pulled out of the driveway to begin the long journey West, we were driving away from an incredible network of friends and a booming restaurant scene that we'd lived and breathed for 5 years (back to the days when 14th street was the sketchy street you walked down to get to Whole Foods).  There's no way to sum up what this city and this blog has meant to us.

When we moved, the number one question our friends asked was "Are you going to start a new blog?"  The answer came swiftly and succinctly: NO.  It's pretty obvious that food blogging has peaked and is on the downward slope.  Some may say that's a blessing, while others (looking to procrastinate at work) are wondering how the heck they're going to get through the day without an amateur recap of the latest pork belly dish. With the rise of Instagram and Twitter, there's little room on the interwebs for rambling essays like we're fond of writing.  Also, to be perfectly honest, blogging is a hell of a lot of work.  We're thrilled we kept it going for 4.5 years and are so grateful to have this scrapbook of our time in DC (and we plan to turn it into an actual memory book - not for sale unless there's some editor out there who is really desperate for content).  There will be no TwoCA and B and J are exiting the blogging business as soon as we give you the last couple posts we swore for months were coming.

Thank you for reading and for commenting. Thank you for emailing us and telling us what you liked and what you didn't like.  Thank you for inviting us to restaurant openings when we had no business being in the same room as actual honest to goodness food critics.  Thanks for all the free booze and that one time you gave us free lobster... that was rad.  Please email us to keep in touch and follow along on Twitter as we see how long it takes for us to lose all of our followers now that our tweets concern mainly UCLA, national parks and California transit issues.  My favorite part of this blog was interacting with our readers and I hope that doesn't end.  We're a great source for (out of date) recommendations on where you should take your parents when they come visit you in DC.  Until we meet again DC,  J