I Want To Live Like I Know What I'm Leaving

I’ve never experienced more often than in San Diego, that sudden, surreal sense of complete wonderment like you get when you’re having a lucid dream and you are unexpectedly aware that you’re dreaming even as you do it. You’re just existing along in an other-dimensionly state, then it’s like, “Wait… what? I’m where? Oh wow!” It’s a very weird feeling – like you’re not sure what to believe is real or part of your imagination. Of course, really, it’s ALL part of your imagination, but that abrupt insight that perhaps NONE of this is real – awake or asleep, no matter which direction you look - will shake your psyche up, sometimes gently and sometimes not. I’ll bet it’s similar to waking up from a coma (not that I have any wish to have a personal point of comparison on that one!).

The thing I’m talking about happens when I’m entirely awake – well, in as much as life is “an awake dream.” It sneaks up on me and pounces… I’m just doing something mundane (usually driving) and suddenly I’m all “OMG, I LIVE in California. [Like this is news to me.] I LIVE here. Like EVERY DAY. And I’m HAPPY.” I don’t know how else to describe it besides some kind of spiritual awakening. Maybe it’s the happy part that shocks me the most. I don’t think I’ve ever been so consistently happy, but then I’ve also never had so much time to do whatever the hell I want either. I’m a little afraid that will change when I have to go back to work, but I’m not considering that right now at any length.

Making it doubly odd (to me at least) is that these thoughts sometimes come in the middle of a day where I feel I’ve accomplished nothing, and I’m getting a bit depressed over some trivial matters. I’m headed down an ugly spiral when all Thought pauses on a step, then an updraft like this hits me and deposits me with a rude thunk at the top of the staircase. I sit there rubbing my third eye like I’ve just been poked awake by the Gods. Hmmm. What was it I was busy getting upset about? Oh, nevermind.

It’s not the fact of my geographical location that puts me in awe (well, a little, because energies are different in different places and this just happens to be a place I jive with), it’s that I’m actually DOING something that once seemed almost impossible – certainly I had no plan and no assured funding when I set out on this path, but here I am and I’m still surviving. (And ever, ever so slowly chipping away at the debt I made getting here.)

Moving here started as a radical idea (so was New Jersey so apparently radical ideas work for me) and I’ve brought it to reality and I’m doing it. I’m still not quite sure how, but it's happening. I’m still here. No one has knocked down my door and said YOU MUST STOP THIS RIGHT NOW. Kind of like when you first move out of your parents’ house and suddenly realize if you want to eat ice cream for breakfast, no one is going to invade the kitchen and say, “No you can’t.” Or even “No you shouldn’t.” (And hell yeah – that’s why I still eat ice cream or brownies or cake or pancakes [oh wait...] for breakfast sometimes!)

I know I’m successful like this in plenty of smaller ways – often even – but moving somewhere and LIVING there and not needing anyone else’s help (at age 40 you’d think this would be normal, but I suppose I never got over that) is still sometimes a shock. Like hey, I actually CAN do this and I’m not going to die! Awesome!

I’m not sure how long living in California has been a dream even – certainly it’s not one of those life-long things because I only really started thinking about it a couple years ago. Or maybe I’m wrong; when my mother and I traveled to San Francisco when I was in 6th grade, I knew there was something special about this state even back then because it’s one of those memories I recall often and clearly. But I don’t remember craving living here (or at least knowing if I moved again, California would be the goal) until a few years back.

The smallest things usually set off the feeling. Noticing how many cars have surf-related stickers on the back. Or driving along The 5 (local lingo for Interstate 5) and seeing the vast expanse of ocean off to the side. Sitting in a coffee shop I’ve read about in a blog or hearing of something happening in LA and knowing I'm close enough that if I wanted to attend, it's an option. Weird!

I’ve often thought of these feelings as being like living in a movie. Maybe that’s why they have such an impact on me. I mean don’t we all really want to live a Hollywood life 24 hours a day deep down? Hollywood makes everything so flawless and the story almost always has a happy ending, right? Who doesn’t want that?

Well I haven’t reached some of the happy endings I’ve had normal “conscious” dreams about yet, but I’m working on them. Trouble with those is that when they don’t come to fruition in the timeline I plan, it causes stress or worry unless I can convince myself enough that stress and worry are futile and if I’m not getting what I expected, then the timing just isn’t right yet. (It’s one thing to know this in your head, quite another to convince your heart.)

But these unconscious dream-goals – are they really dreams or are they a sudden awareness, that hey – you are right where you are meant to be in that moment? But aren’t we always right where we’re meant to be in any given moment? I mean the Universe works perfectly, so why wouldn’t we be? What makes SOME of those most seemingly insignificant moments so powerful while the events that you’ve consciously worked for don’t elicit the same reaction?

Whatever it is, I’m glad they happen.

I’m actually sitting in the car outside the grocery store typing this in a very cramped, uncomfortable position because for once I have the computer with me when good blog material crystalized in my head. Ironically, I spent four hours prior to now in two different coffee shops trying to get inspired to write something. All I got was severely caffeinated. What a thing. Maybe I should haul the Mac around with me more often cuz I never lack for thoughts to share, it’s just that the ideas seem to evaporate when I’m within easy reach of the keyboard. The car, the shower, the toilet (oh yes) are when I get inspired. Imagine. But there’s nowhere to record the thoughts when you’re stuck in such places and they slip back into the ether like so many drops of rain in the Pacific.

Fortunately this time I was prepared so I’m glad to be sharing this, however, I’d better go get my groceries before the store closes or before they send the cops over to check out what the chick in a parking lot is doing on the computer. Surely it’s porn! Or witchcraft! Or worse! People are so suspicious of anything outside “the norm.” Pity. That’s usually where all the good stuff happens.

Soundtrack: Awakening by Switchfoot