Memory Lane

I was driving back from Christmas in Fresno as I was talking on the phone with Earl. Earl is one of my best friends. I was telling him that my only new years resolution for 2008 would be to find Zen.  I told him Zen to me meant balance. It means to have your priorities aligned with your goals, and it means making sure that those goals are realistic. It also means having the right balance between hard work, and fun; both of which are essential. It means paying enough attention to your responsibilities and paying enough attention to the people in your life.

As 2008 is coming to a close I look back and I realize that for the most part I've found Zen. I changed my job, I'm back and succeeding in school, and I moved to what it seems to be good place. My room isn't a cave anymore. My room is now filled with sunshine. 

The move didn't go as smoothly as I had expected it. I should have done things a little bit different.  Staying with friends was challenging. Living out of a suitcase for two or three months was a reality check on my value system. I used to live in a big two floor Victorian Haight-Ashbury flat so I had accumulated a lot of things. Things that I really didn't need nor that would fit my two suitcases that I took to my friend's houses.  The reality of how much I have/had made me realize how "American" I've become. It made me realize that this capitalistic society has changed me, and not for the better. It changed me in a way that my values have shifted. When I first moved to the city I was really focused on school, on work, and paying off my debt. I was in my first Relationship, which ended up lasting about 2 years.  Fast-forward two four years later and finally finishing my two years of general education to transfer to a UC school, and my debt is much more than what it used to be.

Granted, I worked full time for most of the time for which I went to school. But little by little, I lost a lot of myself. I lost a lot of who I was. I lost a lot of who I thought I should be.  I equated who I am with what I have. I became my possessions. Leaving them behind kind of freed me a little.  Giving up the stuff that I owned made me realize who I am; it forced me to deal with my identity. I feel as though the move was a necessary step in this year of enlightenment.  It needed to happen to close one of the chapters in this book of my life: The Ignorant Know It All.

That isn't the only chapter in my life that needed closing however. There are plenty of chapters that have had no such luck. And to finally culminate my year of becoming an adult I have to go and attempt to close those other chapters. This week I'm having coffee with my first love. I've not talked to him in two years. I'm both scared and looking forward to it.  Also, I'm going to Argentina for all of December. I've not been back since I moved here 8 years ago. There are relatives that have passed that I never got to say bye to but mi Viejo (dad) is who I want to see. I need to examine who he is to figure out who I am. I need to know where I came from to figure out where I'm going. Now that the road to the future looks bright again, I have enough strength to look on the rearview mirror and perhaps even hop on memory lane. Perhaps embarking in that journey  will be the last trip towards my own version of Zen.