There are many things that come and go in life:
High school, came and went. Memorable moments: sophomore year & my great friend Colleen whom I went through everything with at the time. junior year and meeting my great love. Senior year and making what I thought were "rest of my life" decisions.
College: making it through my first year. Transferring after my freshman year. Making my new life at Rutgers. Meeting more boyfriends, leaving them for a better life. Choosing to do a 5th year and being proud of it. Running the New Jersey Folk Festival which I now live and breathe. Having new great friends by my side.
There were a couple of things and people consistent among the change - family, my state of mind, the ambitions I felt in my heart for so long...
Today I finalized one of those dreams, I signed an apartment in LA with my cousin, Caiti and made the next step. I'm thrilled and so grateful to have followed my dream, my instinct and my heart. Reflecting on where I've come from and where I'm about to go is obviously inevitable.
No matter who you are or where you've come from, it's always the past that's put you there. I'm one of those people who loves retrospect - I mean, how can you not? Thinking about all the paths you've chosen and all the outcomes you've had and what you've learned from all of them...I mean, really, past IS prologue (just ask the statue on the National Archives in D.C. where that famous phrase is inscribed forever) and it's just like one long "choose your own adventure" book!!
I have a younger brother who I wish I could wrap up retrospect and give to. But he'll learn on his own. He's beautiful in himself. He'll prosper no doubt.
This is all generally just a loaded "thank you" to the destiny I have worked so hard to achieve, but I mean it with all my heart and soul. Putting your life together into some comprehensive, something legible to yourself and others (in a far second to yourself) is probably the hardest thing I've ever hard to do, and surely something I'll work to complete forever. I feel like it's so easy to go through the motions of what your supposed to do, but figuring out and following through on what you truly WANT is the most damn difficult thing in the world! I watch so many of the people I know and love settle for a certain future. I'm not one to judge, I just see the gleam in their eyes, and then I see the doubt they cloud themselves with.
I recently was laid off from my part-time job. It's a funny story, actually:
I came into work on a Friday. My great friend Magdalena was in the cube adjacent to me, and I stopped in before setting my things down to say good morning.
"Hey sweetie," she said, "how long will you be here today?"
"For as long as I can stand it," I scoffed and joked.
Within an hour I was having the door of my bosses office shut behind me (which is undoubtedly trouble) being given a speech on how they're cutting hours back and I should "basically find another job to replace this one."
My heart rate jumped with my heart, and after walking out to run to the bathroom to freak out, I stopped myself mid-tear while wondering "what am I going to do," and realized that I hated my job. Why was I so upset? I was working the less-than-stellar office job, sitting on my ass, contributing nothing, and hating every second of it. I was upset because my norm had been disrupted in a complicated time in my life and I was totally thrown off. I didn't cry over the job, I cried over the stress of money and maybe some PMS and that was it. I walked away that day with a little bit of humility and definitely a renewed perspective.
Fast-forward to today. It's my spring break of my senior year of college. I'm in this college town that more resembles a ghost town than anything right now, dog sitting a quasi-crazy dog belonging to my roommate, with no job, nothing to do, and nothing to take my mind off the fact that I have nothing to do. I lamented in the realization that I haven't been productive lately, although my attempts to be so were valiant. And then, in the sheer alignment of the stars, in the good faith of God, whatever it may be, I got a phone call from my fantastic counterpart telling me of an apartment that is available in LA. I've decided to move there to live my dream of living on the West Coast, and for no other reason except for the warm weather and the disgustingly obsessive-almost-sick-with-desire feeling I get when I'm there. And throughout the entire day, I've talked and calculated and faxed and now I have my dream apartment on the outskirts of Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. I'm thrilled and slightly terrified -but I can't wait to live the rest of my life.
I took a chance on what I wanted. I am living my life one step at a time and I couldn't be more grateful for where I've been to get to this very key-slamming moment. I never knew what I wanted in high school. How can you? At 17 you don't know what you want - you know exactly what you DON'T want and that's about it. At 20 I didn't know either. At 22, I'm one step closer to figuring it out, and about 38 steps closer to feeling totally in the moment. But all in all, I would never be to this point if it weren't for the things that came and went.
The boys, the life experiences, the fuck-ups, the joyous occasions, the heartbreaks, the lay-offs, the isolated incidents...every piece has brought me a greater understanding of where I want to be (and I don't mean that literally). If there is one thing I can encourage those I love and those I one day will love and those I don't even know - it's to truly follow your heart through what you've experienced, because REALLY, REALLY - you deserve to crave and follow through on every dream you have.
with all my love, now and retrospectively,
me
