Dear Los Angeles,

I'm sorry. I have spent the past four years lying about our relationship. I have spent the past four years threatening to leave you, rolling my eyes and bemoaning how hard it is to raise children in a place like this. I have spent the past four years dreaming of small towns and big back yards, but there is a reason we haven't pulled the trigger.

I'm tired of pretending. I'm done complaining about the problems and the downside. I will never again claim to wish I lived in a small town, or on a farm. I don't. I don't even want to live in the suburbs. I want to live right where we are, in LA. I want to live in this big, beautiful, bustling, sprawling city, with its pollution and crime and traffic, because the flip side, the diversity and the culture and the vibrancy, is so clearly worth it. My children won't have a bucolic childhood. We've chosen something different for our family. We have chosen Los Angeles and all of what comes with it.

But now that I have confessed my undying devotion, can we talk about the traffic?

Love Always,