This moment where I lay naked on top of my sheets, the cool breeze from my windows tickling my skin as I lay alone listening to George Winston's piano filling my room. These moments I never thought I'd live.
I left many things to come here. To be in this moment, alone, at night, the twinkling Christmas lights that delicately light my room as I contemplate both my existence and my happiness...and my alone time. The moments to ponder where my love has gone and why instead it has turned to something somewhat empty and cold, yet easy and underrated.
Maybe it's Chico. Maybe it's that I finally get it, or maybe it's my fears...the fear of being broken like I once was. Maybe these same fears keep me complacent in my current state...or maybe they hold me to something more. Something more than chasing pipe dreams and fantasies that were only once fulfilled when I was younger, more naive and living in the city where opportunities were bountiful. Unlike this town where you grab on to what you can get because there isn't much else. And the fear of being needy because there is no plan B because there are so few options in this town.
The idea of that is frightening.
I had a young friend of mine, a beautiful young 21-year old guy who I drove home the other night who brought to my attention the reality of being young and alone.
"I don't like summer in Chico. I don't like that all my older friends have just left. I used to stroll up with 15 friends and I could turn in any direction and know everyone. Now I go with 5 or 6 and it's scary to imagine not knowing people at the bars". He literally had that epiphany as we were driving and I saw his heart break and he said to me "I don't like this kind of growing up" and my heart broke for him because all of a sudden he saw how big and scary and lonely the world really is...
I smiled at his innocence and the reality he was so fearful of. A reality that, to me, was exciting and adventurous, but to him was the end of his youth and the beginning of a fate almost worse than death....a fate where the world around you is new and knows nothing of you and you have to actually step forth and be present in someone else's moment...and that was terrifying to him.
In a way I pitied him, yet almost envied him for his youth. A youth I was trying not to grow out of. A youth where the entire world was still at my finger tips and there were no limits, except my own fears and insecurities. Maybe I grew up in a different world than him, but I had always been content in starting new things and almost crave it at times. It's those adventures that have given me my boldness and my ability to handle my solidarity with composure and a masked confidence.
We are all afraid, though some of us hide it better than others. We also sometimes realize, in the end, we are all human and are all alone to some degree, but it is what we do with that solidarity that makes us who we are.
If you fear change, you will never grow. If you crave change, you will never be content. But if you embrace change and accept it as what makes life so beautiful, you my friend, will not only be successful, but will find a happiness so few will ever understand.
I loved a boy who always gave me visions of the ocean. I never understood why when I would close my eyes and his hands would caress me that I would always see the ocean, and I was always in it, letting the sea foam green wash over my body, the sweet smell of the ocean, the soft green of the warm Pacific. It was always so refreshing, but I never understood it until that touch became turbulent and my heart was shattered into a thousand pieces by the same man who brought me such peace.
Why always the ocean...what was I trying to tell myself?
When I used to surf in Hawaii and SoCal, the thing I will never forget learning was that you never turn your back to the ocean, you always go with it and never fight the current, it will only exhaust you. When you go with the ocean and let Mother Nature play with you, it becomes almost a religious experience. And that is a lot like life.
And that is what I should have done.
The changes in life are like the ocean. Embrace the waves that come, dive beneath what you know you can't handle and let it wash over your back. But no matter what, do not fight it or it will drown you. Trust that in the end you will float to the top where you can take your breath and maybe catch the next wave in.
Always remember, you will gain more control when you just let go. Go with the change and that will make all the difference.
So as I lay here, I reflect on the depths I have seen and the triumphs I have rejoiced in. I imagine all the ways I drowned myself by fighting against the currents that were trying to bring me somewhere else. Did I make the right decision? Did I embrace the waves or did I take them for granted? Did I lay in that moment and hold it close so that I never forget it? Or did I look past it for the next wave, rather than enjoying the ride of the one I was currently in. I worry I may, out of fear, looked past all the beauty that was right in front of me. Except now. This moment where I lay here, sprawled carelessly on my bed and enjoying every little detail of this night. I plan to embrace these moments and hold them close so that when I feel like I might drown, I will always remember when I floated to the top and took the next wave in...
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