it's been a long time since you felt better

Reflecting on my four years in California, I found some writing that I had stored away from the  first year I moved to Orange County.  For the first time in my life, I had moved across the country to a new state, and for the next four years, I would continue to change so many things about my life.  For a moment, it seemed like life was finally calming down.  But maybe, I'm starting to figure, it was just a temporary lull.  Although my experiences with relationships have happily changed since then (contrast to more recent post), I feel like life has hit me with a second set of change. My reflections with the beach remain the same.  I think this explains the mood best.

---------------------------------------------------------- 4/18/09 1:52AM
A funny thing I’ve noticed lately is that my head has a continuous soundtrack of Jenny Lewis/Rilo Kiley songs playing as background music. I am not sure for how long this has been going on, but I have a funny feeling it has been for a while. Yesterday, acoustic ballads from the Jenny Lewis concert were playing in my mind along to the soothing rhythm of the waves crashing to the shore as Will and I ran back and forth the beach, scooping wet sand with our hands onto our incomplete attempt at a sand castle. The sun was skimming off the water, I could hear children laughing in the background, and then, I remembered how easily troubles melt in warm California weather. 

I always believed that I was I die-hard romantic. I think my past idealistic aspirations led me to a can of whoop-ass, delivered by reality himself. I don’t think I will ever change as a romantic, but instead, maybe I’ve changed to a different kind. Rather than daydreaming of romantic fantasies and ideals, I think I live for the romance in everyday life. I like to believe there is still romance in reality. Yesterday holds a good memory for me in its simplicity. I don’t return to blog and gush about blue eyes, lingering fingertips, or a hope for some monogamous future. Instead, I remember the blue waters, the lingering reflection of the sun before the sunset faded to night, and I remember the restoring hope of enjoying the moment simply as it is. 

My jaded perspective on relationships, especially marriages, brought me back to re-considering what it is I want and how I am going to get there. For a while, I’ve often treated the details of my personal life as something inappropriate to discuss, but the more I take the time to share (slowly, but surely) with the people I love, the more I realized that I am not alone. It turns out that people are more understanding and empathetic than I give them credit for (go figure). Though it should not have been a surprise to me, I discovered that the people who remain in my life care about me. I can take my time. I will figure myself out. I want to see the unspoken details as I live them, not just imagine them in my mind. I’ve lived in a separate world, in a continuous day dream. I don’t want to suddenly live dangerously, but I want to live without socially implicated obligations for a while. I mean to say, I just want to be myself, and to recenter my focus to being me. And I am most thankful to know that my friends will still be there for me.

Last week my other fiddler crab died, probably during my visit back home. A couple of days ago, I made a drive to Huntington Beach to release her into the shore. I walked alone to the waters, and I think to myself. I think about how the crabs were my first friends during my first month here, I think about how transient life can be, and I look around me. A surfer and I smile simultaneously. I put my crab, wadded inside a wad of a kitchen napkin, into a mound in the sand. The waves crash quicker than I anticipate, and as the waters pull back, my crab is already gone. The sun breaks into a million pieces on the ripples in the water, and I can hear Jenny Lewis playing Under the Blacklight in the background.