So it’s Monday and I am officially (and willfully) unemployed. I feel free. I’m watching the Santa Ana winds blowing through the bright green leafs of the trees and the clear blue water of the pool outside my window. When I was a kid, I used to run outside and play in these same winds. I’d let it blow through my hair and my clothes; I’d lean against it and its invisible force would hold me up.
I think that, maybe, there’s a lot of invisible forces that hold us up. And this past week, saying goodbye after goodbye to so many people that I care about, I realize that over the last three years its been the love and friendship of these people that has been holding me up.
In five days, I’m going to Spain to expand and challenge myself, but it’s really been here, in California, where I have gotten to know myself, and I’ve learned I can make it through just about anything. As I see friend after friend and hug goodbye, I can feel myself turning the page, but I know it will be a place I’m never truly away from and one I will visit often.
This is not to say I will never return to California, I just know it will never be the same again.
I happened to find this book someone gave my mom as a gift when she graduated from college. It’s called The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, and I’ve loved reading it because it feels like, maybe, it’s something my mom would want me to know. It sums up a lot of how I feel:
“How shall I go in peace without sorrow? Nay, without wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.
Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?
Too many fragmants of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without burden and ache.
It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin I tear with my own hands.
Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.
Yet I cannot tarry longer.
The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.
For to stay, though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in mould.”
In the past three years, I have experienced the biggest heartaches, losses, and challenges of my life. And leaving here, the place of these heartaches and the healing that has taken place since, is going to be strange and sad. But, I know something bigger is calling me, and moving on is what I have to do.
Dear Andrea,
Good idea to do this blog. All your family and friends will get the same news and we can check in when we have time, like I have at 6:30 a.m. on a Monday morning before work.
Uncle Steve and I love you and are very proud of you for taking this major step in your life. You are correct: You may return to Southern California (and of course, we hope you do), but you will not be the same person. Your vision will have been expanded, you will have met people from around the world and will have realized that all of us have more in common than we have differences. We all want to feel successful, live in peace and find love.
All the best,
Aunt Diane