Home?

It's been a week now. The moving boxes are in the garbage, the fridge is slowly filling up a bit more, and I am slowly becoming less dependent on my GPS to get me around the city.

One week ago last night I couldn't sleep a wink. I was so terrified about leaving the world as I knew it behind to take a difficult trade in a new town. I wanted life to stop moving so damn fast. Maybe if things were put on pause, I could pause, and take a breath. One day I'm at a job interview, then seemingly the next day I'm in an empty unfurnished apartment, then the next I'm at a U-Haul rental. The pace felt blistering.

Last night, I ended up going to bed early. I was so exhausted from the ultimate tournament I played in all day that day and the day before. Sleep in my bed seemed attractive compared to the floor of a hotel room with a group of men who just recently stopped feeling like strangers. Now I consider these men friends. Just one week ago it felt like it would take months to feel at home, but when I got out of the car from the drive home, I couldn't help but feel a wave of comfort overcome me. As if I had finally arrived. As if I had come home.

One week. In one week I found that life doesn't ever stop and wait. In order to be at peace with the direction of my life I had to move with it. Harmony will never exist in strife, and in order for me to experience that I had to stop fighting against my vector. A huge part of me wanted to view my plight as leaving my comfort zone, but my paradigm slowly shifted from a "leaving" mentality to that of an "entering" mentality. After a few days I was no longer leaving home, but entering a new lot. It wasn't like this place had become a consolation for a lost familiarity anymore; instead it was an adventure.

I think back to all the experiences where things changed and I thought they would be the death of me: moving to college, changing majors, dropping to part-time status and working, etc. All those changes started rough. But as time went on, I found a rhythm. I found different friends in the different circles I became close with. Routines and rituals found their way into my life, and after a while, when I got a feel for my system, things became more natural. The hard part of it all was leaving old friends and senses of comfort behind. I tried to keep everything in light of the changes, but it didn't work. Dorm friends weren't seen as often as work friends, who weren't seen as often as the friends I had made within my major. It took conscious work to just let the shift happen, and be confident enough in myself that I will survive the quake, and thrive in the outcome.

I'm discovering now how terrifying change truly isn't.

Tabula Rasa

I always wanted my goodbye's to be as epic as the ones I see in the movies. I want people to share their true feelings of me, whether good or bad. I want people to call off work or school obligations to see me off. I want time to stop for a brief moment while I stand there with the woman I always wanted to be with but never had the courage to approach.

But time won't stop. She'll tip her glass to me and we'll exchange no words. Some of my good friends will opt out of my final night so they can stock shelves, write papers, or cook themselves dinner so they can make their ends meet. Some of the people who can even set the time aside to say goodbye may not be capable of sharing their true feelings with anyone, much less someone who's leaving them behind.

This isn't a sad reality. While it may be reality, the only reason it seems sad is because it smashes against my silly fantasy. I think so often we see reality as cruel because of its divorce from things we see as fitting, when in reality they are only fantastical. In the grand scheme of things, it's my responsibility to objectively discern the degree of my impact on Newark, DE. I have to sort out all the mistakes I have made, while at the same time accepting the good I may have provided.

I can easily see all the people I had been more harm than help. I can see all I women I had hurt; and I hate that I had done that. All out of one childish tendency or another. This is I will set right in Richmond. Never again. I can also see all the men in I life I marginalized. I spoke down to them and regarded them as lesser life. For that I must repent. And my evil not only stops at maladjustment, but also at indifference. I didn't provide some things to people I know I should've been able to. Mainly spiritually. All of these things I must put behind me.

The fright of the blank slate lies directly within its definition; starting over. However, I'm not truly starting over. I'm still bringing the same version of myself I am leaving Newark with. I have a clean name, yet the same rather tussled identity. When I take a bird's eye perspective of what's truly happening, there's nothing epic about it! I got a job which perfectly matched up with the degree I got, and I'm moving three hours down 95 to do that job. It's a big deal; but if time's going to stop for anything, it shouldn't be that.

Growing seems to have a lot to do with accepting responsibility for the things we are ultimately responsible for. In this case, it's my responsibility to determine the spiritual things I should take to Richmond with me, and determine the things I should leave at home. It's not other people's responsibility to make me feel like I left Newark with an overall positive impact. Their input is vitally important, and helps me nail down the specifics, but I shoulder the ultimate duty of believing I'm not a malefactor in the town I live.

See how not epic being an adult can be?

Such is reality. The tricky part is accepting it and being in harmony with it. That's being an adult, and that's what I want to leave Newark and enter Richmond as.

Another Blog?

Yes. Another blog.

After a long moratorium from writing, I have started up another blog. I started a new blog because the last one has run it's course. The beginning portion of it was simply my need to externally process my feelings in public. Pretty stupid. Granted, I screwed my head on right after a while, and used the blog as a means to increase my writing chops.

This one I wish to establish a more healthy middle ground. I want to use this blog to update on my life and my writing, while at the same time stretch my prose to its limit. One could argue my last blog did that, which it did at the very end, but I hated opening it up and seeing two years of high-school-xanga-esque posts. It was discouraging. And just in the manner that I have had to mature to fit the needs of my life, so has my writing, and thus, my blogging.

That's the story. For those of you who liked my blog over the past year or so will hopefully feel the same about this new one. Let me know what you think. Thanks.