[Note] The auto post on this didn't work, so this is being posted on a Tuesday. Damn blogger!!!![/Note]
A year ago August I let loose something that had been growing inside me. Something so grand, for me, that I finally uprooted myself and moved to another state. (warning, long post ahoy!)
A little back tracking here: I got out of what was, quite honestly, the worst relationship I'd ever been in in early Febuary of 2010. Thank the gods it was only 6 months, but the stress of it (and losing 2 family members in a month's span just before) wrecked my mind. Next few months after this were a blur to me. I dated someone else, piced up smoking. Again, a total blur. Once the dust in my mind settled I had a little chat with myself. The basic question I ask was "What in the FUCK are you doing with your life, Jeff?" (Yes I ask myself questions in the 3rd person, it helps me think)
I didn't have an answer. I mean I had no goddamned answer to myself. I'd somewhat floated between school, work, school, home, and sleep. Somewhere in that cycle I got pattern locked: I didn't see myself doing anything else or doing anything in the future. I wasn't going anywhere, as evidence of the fact that I'd lived in one square mile for half my life. I felt like I was circling the drain, waiting to be flushed down.
I now realize I was suffering from a mild but long on-going depression, if it could be called depression. I really don't know what to call it. The best thing that I can this of is "a lack of adventurous spirit". Somewhere between the end of high school and that point, possibly even earlier, my "give-a-damn" and "curiosity" circuits had died. Sure I like learning things but I was apathetic to apply them. I like where I lived since I could practically drive it with my eyes closed. I like that familiarity.
The problem was, I figured out, that kind of familiarity comes with stagnation. I hated long trips, going to other places that I didn't know. I had a great wealth of knowledge in my head and my fingertips, but no reason to apply it. And I needed to find out, because the longer I stayed in this state the further entrenched I would become.
So I did my natural thing and went to the beach. I really could fit in "any place with little people in nature" for "beach" but the far end of Huntington Beach proper fit the bill this time. It was the 1st of June, 2010. I traveled down the beach, as far as I was allowed. I think it was past Lifeguard post 15 or so before I couldn't hear anyone further up the beach. I sat down, on the warms sands, facing the ocean and closed my eyes. I'm not quite sure how long it was before I finally started understanding what had happened. Though the worst I had yet experienced the relationship I had gotten out of a few months previous had done something to me, something good in fact. "The fires have reignited. Use them well this time?" I thought, somewhere adrift in other thoughts and the sound of the ocean's roar. Not quite sure if I was trying to talk to myself, or just decided to work it like this. Either way, I understood. It was the first of Adventure, a feeling I'd missed for so many years.
So that started my search for a new place to live, which also pushed me to finish my current schooling and start a new quest for a degree. I'm now a full year into this transformation. And my adventure continues, as it should, rather than be extinguished once again.
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