Movin'

  About a week ago I was totally stressed out, wiped out and desperately in need of a vacation.  I knew that overall my life was fine, but sometimes all the physical and mental issues get jumbled together at once and you wonder how you're going to find the strength and state of mind to sort it all out again.  My love, my art, my living situation, my financial situation... everything appeared to be a ridiculous uphill battle, especially in a place like San Francisco.  In fact, that part was getting to me the most.  Despite all of my hiking last summer, I'm pretty sick of walking up this mountain every time I want to do anything.  It's really drawing a lot of my energy that could be used on better things.

  After a long walk I got back to the kitchen and found a letter from my college loans saying they had changed my minimum payment, which doesn't fix my debt, but does make it easier to breathe for now.  Then I talked to one of my favorite people in the world, my friend Brad, for the first time in months.  Then I packed my suitcase to go see my cousins in Mexico for a much-needed vacation from my life here.  Work is fine, but everything else was getting to me.  I was listening to a lot of "Stressed Out" by A Tribe Called Quest, "Venice Queen" by Red Hot Chili Peppers and "Long as I Can See the Light" by CCR.  And "Rainy Night House" to remind me why I was in the situation I was in...

   Today I celebrated my first full day back in the USA by taking a drive on Highway 1 along the ocean after class.  I missed the beach already.  On top of that, we'd finished the class by reading an article about deforestation, and then the students shared all of the issues in the world that were most important to them.  When I got back home to my grungy room by the freeway, I found it difficult to breathe.  I'd been spoiled by the fresh sea air.  I decided I needed to keep the mental relaxation from my Mexican beach vacation going somehow back in the real world or I'd be stressed out all over again, and that's no way to live or get things done.  After all, California is about fun and peace, right?  That's why I came here, right?  If I can't find it while I'm here, then I'm against everything I think I stand for.  Or something like that.

   As soon as I arrived at the ocean, I wondered why I was ever stressed out at all before.  This has been here the whole time.  I've visited before, but I didn't feel as much before.  But after a week with family and people and not worrying about anything, excited to start a new chapter upon my return to America, life began raging everywhere.  It's the ocean... it's everything... wave upon wave of life flowing in front of me, to me, with me. 

  When I got home I e-mailed my landlord and told him that I will be moving out of the house at the beginning of July.  I don't know where I'll live next.  I guess I will find out in the next month.  I love the mystery already.