Long flights, hard nights

Right now I am sitting on a plane sailing 30,000 ft. in the air. Where am I headed? Back to LA for the last time. When I arrive I will be begin packing my things and begin to shuffle them into a Uhaul to make the 1,000 mile trek back to Oregon. I came to this city nearly 3 years ago. It’s a bittersweet feeling to be leaving. Part of me loves this city, part of me hates this city. Standing in Los Angeles I can’t help but feel inspired. Everything around you is moving and swirling in constant motion. People going here and accomplishing things. You feel a part of it, even if you’re not. It’s just the aura the city gives. Everyone is on the verge of something big, even if they aren’t trying. That’s also what kills me. I feel I was slipping into that cancer that eats the weak here. They get caught into the grove of who they know and what that gets them. No longer friends for the sake of being friends, now friends for the sake of advancement of myself. And that’s shitty. I’m over it. I’m going to clear my head and come back when I have re-focused.

So as I close this crazy chapter in my life, a chapter filled with wild adventure that took me all over the globe in a whirlwind of spontaneous trips, long nights, and famous places, I step back and look at all I did those past three years. I did a lot, but did I accomplish a lot? I feel I became more open minded to other cultures, countries, and people. However at the same time I slipped more into my narrow safety bubble of people I can tolerate and will let in and became more jaded to certain cultures and the excesses of the wealthy and not so powerful. I became more focused on me then ever before and have actually started to question the “I am the only person that will ever be there for me so only worry about making me happy” motto I have been living under the past 3 years. I have hurt people. People have hurt me. I think it’s time to invest a large part of myself again in someone and hope for the best. Faith is all we really ever have in anything anyway. So I’ll take the risk and bet it all on red. I’ve walked away from long-term investments for my own sanity and looking back, it was definitely for the best and left to do it all over again, I’d make the same choice. I re-aquatinted with an old lady friend from my past and a relationship that I am proud of has blossomed from that. Something about seeing a girl passionate about life and doing everything on her own to get exactly what she wants that makes me satisfied with the person she is. She is my breath of fresh air after years of LA atmosphere. Lately I have started to really pay attention to the fact that people change. Yes they do. Some for the better, and some for the worse. That’s the thing about being an organic living being; you adapt. How you adapt is always your choice. I am thinking right now; “will I always be this cold?” I don’t know if I can answer that. I have been hurt bad and have become a ghost of a man from it. I bottle emotion in the back of my throat and swallow it whole in a beer-bong of feelings that was gone before anyone realized it was even there. And it is definitely my Achilles heel. I have no emotion. I am stone. Cold, dark granite. I only get angry and defensive. I am that football team on the field rapidly switching defenders to react to what the offense is going to do even before it happens. I am impulsive and excessive in my actions. I line too many defenders on the line when it's a hail-mary and leave the back field undefended. Then when the long bomb comes I jumped the gun already and miss judged the play. Often resulting in me loosing the game. How’s that for a stretched analogy? The thing about me is that game after game, I keep making the same mistakes. Will I ever learn? I hope so. I look into the future and I see a positive horizon I am heading towards. I once thought that if I moved back it was all over. Now I get excited about what is coming next, even in small town Oregon. Staying true to the spontaneous and impulsive person I am, I am taking a plunge and risking it all to give my all for this new feeling that makes me smile. It’s definitely different than I have ever had, but I like that. Like discovering a new dish at your favorite restaurant, you get obsessed and start to order it again and again because you can’t get enough. I can’t get enough and I am moving next to the restaurant so I can order it every day.