Late March 2013
As I look outside my window, budding white blossoms are a sign of change. Just months ago, the same trees stood stark naked during an impressively cold Santa Barbara winter. Before that, leaves slowly drifted with the wind as if being plucked by a gentle invisible giant. Thus continued the natural progression of fall, winter, and now spring.
It will never cease to amaze me how seasons are so readily attached to the cadence of our lives. Our hopes and joy are often rooted in spring. While in winter the days are short and the nights long. In the harsh thralls of winter it's hard to disagree with Hobbes, who famously said that life is "nasty, brutish, and short". Right now my life is changing.
"It's in your nature."
I can't help but feel excited. I'm moving to Chile! Who does that? And do they mean when they say it's in my nature?
Planes, trains, and automobiles. No, we're not saying that I'm likely to become the next big shower curtain ring success story. Instead they're saying that there is a tenacity; a zeal for adventure. Recycled air, the gentle swaying of the train, and perpetual exhaustion despite hours of sleep. These are what I am. I relish in the fact that my friends see planes and think of me.
For a while I've felt a need to go. However, at the same time everything that I've worked for and everything I love is here. Letting go is not as easy as people make it seem. So for awhile I was content to see opportunities come and go. But I knew as surely as the seasons change, so too would my mind.
While letting go is one of the scariest things I have ever done. As Andre Gide says, "one must lose sight of the shore, to discover new oceans." So here I am, eyes to the fading shore.
