It’s closing in on 3 am here on the west coast. In a few swift hours I’ll begin my trip back home. By that point, it only would have been 10 days since I left. It is amazing what 10 days removed from everything, placed in a completely different setting, just relaxing and trying to enjoy every moment of life can do. I wanted to write a few times while I was gone. I even considered keeping a daily travelogue, but I either failed on that front or just didn’t have the time. I kind of like that it turned out that way. I get to culminate instead.
First thing’s first, I want to say a few things. For once, the last post that I actually published was about depression. I want to make it clear one more time, I don’t suffer from any sort of clinical or physically induced depression. I just hit seasons in my life sometimes. The past 8 years or so are probably years most prone given all of the transitions hitting in succession as well as the final stages of metamorphosis from ‘a kid’ to ‘an adult’. But once again, I don’t regularly suffer from depression, so don’t misunderstand me. If I get depressed, it is just a very temporal phase in my life– we all go through these things.
Secondly, I’ll go ahead and get this one out of the way. I’m going back to school. The fact is, I never intended on not going back and finishing, and for all I know something in my life may sweep me away and I don’t, in fact, make it back at the time I expect/am declaring now, but for all intents and purposes, in this moment I can say I am going back to finish up the little bit I have left. If I keep my Spanish minor, I only have 19 hours left (one of which is a 1 hour total joke class, so it is really just like taking 6 classes instead of the average 5). Or, to my understanding, I can even graduate without that minor and only have 11 hours (what I was told). Either way, I know that there is a large part of me that has such a distaste for how messed up the system is (the loan system + mercurial rise of tuition and costs is oppressive) as well as how much I think school is just a hoop jumping contest (and I hate jumping through hoops), or how I pretty much completed my major course of study and just quit going 1 week out from having practically no work left, but there is also the prideful part of me, who wants to bring that degree home, not just so I have it as some sort of superfluous credential to tote around the career field, but to my actual home. You know, this piece of paper that nobody else in my immediate family has, something that my parents would be immensely proud of, even if we all understand that in the scope of things it bears no meaning on the world, or if it doesn’t truly prove much of anything as far as my personal capabilities go, you know pride, something that is ok in the most minuscule of amounts. There are other parts of me, such as the one who has genuinely enjoyed my experience at Belmont University. The one who realizes that I made a lot of meaningful connections there, and opened the door for many more. The side that understands how significant so many of my experiences as a student there were, inside and outside of the classroom. The part of me that underwent the slow process of becoming disconnected from the entire university and the people it consists of and feeling insulated from the entire atmosphere longs for one more stab to get plugged back in. Finally, just the plain fact that I’ve never been a quitter, and I never intended on quitting when I left. It was simply a means to an end– the end being graduating. It is just something I am feeling strongly. I spent a long time feeling all types of dread, anxiety, ambivalence and apathy when even thinking about anything associated with school, but now those feelings have subsided, and as I continue laying out a general groundwork for the path my life is on at the moment, I hope to get that aspect paved as part of the process.
So like I said, 10 days, it really isn’t that long, but then again, most vacations are even shorter. It was the perfect length in the sense that I don’t know how much longer I (or the generous friends I have) could have financially sustained it. At the same time, it was at the borderline length of removing myself from routines, I feel like when I get back, I might have to work a bit more to kick myself back into gear (especially physically), but I’ll be back to the shape I was in and into the routines I need to be in– as if I never left. At the same time, it there was just enough kickin’ it time for it to be meaningful, to be impactful, to make a real difference. As each day went by I got a lot more comfortable with everything, but especially (most importantly) with myself. I haven’t been comfortable with myself in forever– to the point I had forgotten myself. I’m not starting to feel comfortable in my own skin again, the gloves fit my hand again, basically. Since this is the end of it and the last night, I can really reflect, and just reflecting on this day alone, I feel really good. I feel that today I really did get broken in a lot more than all the other days combined, not to say that there wasn’t more exertion all of those days, but just that the progress today was the greatest. So not only am I building off of that progress, but because I felt the effects increase in an exponential manner that means I have momentum. Momentum will be everything to me in the coming weeks. There is no other way to put it; it’s just freakin exciting.
This was not the kind of get away filled with reflection and all sorts of arduous introspection. This was just getting the hell out of there and just hanging out, just chilling you know. My two point men out here, Robert and Ryan have been incredibly generous to me, and it is almost hard to feel blessed because really it gets me thinking, “What exactly did I do to earn anyone who would go that far for me in my life?” And of course, other friends and my hosts have also blessed me a lot more than I deserve. I’m glad I got to spend time with the people I did, hopefully it can be a sliver of time that various people can look back on and recall it being an enjoyable week and half, and if I’m lucky, a time that was enjoyable in part by my temporary company.
I know I’ve talked about moving, and I am still considering it. Of course, amidst having to figure out a lot of things in my life in terms of the present and also needing to finish school, it is impossible to tell how that will work out, but it is funny, the LA area is a place I always thought to myself I could never live, but I think knowing there are people out here who can erase this entire concept of inability goes as far as to make it an appealing place to live, all other things aside (and there are a lot). So who knows, maybe I’ll still end up back out here. Plus Ryan Baker is still my point man on a project. So I may have to chase a dream for a while, and this could be where I have to end up in order to chase. The thing about it is, chasing a dream for me isn’t some quest to attain this mythical artifact (the dream), but instead, it is just the chase. Sometimes you need to chase just to say that you chased. I wouldn’t mind chasing for a while, at least you’ll give your legs some work. For all I know the dreams I end up chasing may take me to the obscure corners of the earth after all, the may take me to crazy southern California, or they may plant me down in middle Tennessee for longer. Either way, I am now starting to once again see the excitement in life both long term and short term. Most importantly, my journey out here is done and I’m coming home. For now.
It’s good to be with friends no matter where you are. It’s good to be home, no matter how everything else is. I’ve missed all of my people back home, and I’ve missed plain home. All the while, I’ll miss the people I have spread out all over, as well as the places I’ve been familiar with in my life.
Really, it’s just good though.