center of the cyclone

looking back on all the could have's and should have's is maddening. let's not go there.

time keeps going, and so do we. so now that gravity's rejoined us and all that shit's starting to float back down i'm realizing that nothing has actually changed. i mean I'VE changed. I feel better. I remember that January crisis mode. My roommate and best friend in this town is joining the peace core in february, i'm still in the same clinic space, still have the same crazy land lord, the same crazy neighbors, i'm practicing my medicine and getting paid for it (which after all, was the dream all along, wasn't it?), have a second job at a community acupuncture clinic that pays my rent and lets me meet new and inspiring people all the time, and i'm learning from teachers that have influenced me in was equal to my mentor back home. I'm not dating, but am involved in a quasi relationship that could at best be described as intoxicating and fulfilling, and at worst- like a bad idea... a weird, bad idea. but eh, that's never stopped me before.

I've got some sick family stuff going on some 3,200 miles away that is making me feel very divided between locations... not in the way that I could make any difference if i were there... but in the way that it just kills me to know that i'm not. alcoholism fucking sucks. I'm thinking I might take a month long trip down there in november to just offer my love and be present, see how it goes. i don't know, really. I guess today i'm feeling pretty great, it's exhausting to talk about sad, hopeless situations when you're feeling good. so i won't, but i promise, next time im feeling the depths of sadness, guilt, grief, and despair over this i'll get on here and vent. heh.

so basically i've realized that despite all of the things in my life right now that are actually WAY more tumultuous than they had been the last time i signed on here, i am also far more at peace. I've learned that i grow more, i reach more, i dive into myself deeper and more meaningfully, when i am in pain. not when i'm afraid. when i'm sad, i look to run from the sadness, when i'm afraid, i hide from the fear- but when i'm in pain, i know how to confront in and- well... really, there's no where farther to run, so... maybe that played a role in this too. either way, i figured out how to turn in, and separate myself from the storm swirling around me. and i realized one thing:

THE STORM WILL ALWAYS BE SWIRLING AROUND ME, I AM ALIVE.

this allowed me the freedom to stop running (the next step is to learn to stop chasing).

i've always been whisked around in the wind, tossed around by the storm of emotions, circumstances, and just life, really, that i will never be able to control. i'm sensitive to that stuff, i just am. what happens when you take a 150 lb object and toss it into a tornado?? it becomes yet another projectile... really, i would like to believe i was destined for something greater than "projectile!"... not helpful. so i learned to step into the center of the cyclone. to observe the storm. to react to the other projectiles tied into the storm, but consciously. to be the objective observer that i somehow never realized i could be. i fall in and out as it is, but i hope to make this space in the center home base, its quite peaceful and even entertaining here.

my love life could be a blockbuster. seriously.

its true... i am a weirdness magnet. i don't really seek these things out, but god if i don't find them anyway. feast or famine.... i suppose.

one day i'll figure out how to drive with out the emergency break on.

Phase 2

This all began about 9 months ago when i moved diagonally across the country, left my home town and everyone I knew, sold everything I could, packed up my cat and some things and took off to start a new life in a city i'd visited once.

I wanted to blog about this experience as it was happening. I thought about it daily, I even created a blog. It never happened. So within the first few months I had made friends at an alarming rate, opened a business that's doing insanely well, found a best friend in my random room mate via craigslist, and thanked the universe for giving me the balls to get out of that town and find this one.

Don't ask me how I did all that. I don't know. It just happened. I chalked it up to fate. 2010 was a year for big changes. For things that require a GIANT force of momentum. Once i got the ball rolling I was apparently unstoppable insofar as making changes and establishing a completely new life. I was happy. happier.

I guess what it came down to when deciding to leave initially was that it was a more terrifying thought to stay in the town i had more or less lived in and around my whole life than it was to take a huge risk and leap across the country. What better place to head than the great north west. Looking back, actually, a psychic told me once when I was like 15 that I'd live out here some day. Good job man. You guessed it.

Anyway. 2010 served its purpose. And now its gone. What do you want from me 2011?? Why am I stir crazy?

I feel like I've thrown every aspect of my life up into the air, up to the universe and am now just waiting for it to all fall back into place, any place really. Somethings stirring, somethings GOT to change. Problem is for some reason gravity decided to abandon me and that shit's all suspended just out of my reach. What does that even mean?

I think 2011 is going to be about the details. So far the details are maddening. Small aspects of my business and personal life are making me crazy and are no longer dimmed by dust cloud of last year's twister-like change. Everything needs to be taken up a notch. I need to move my business location, move my home (roomie and our 2 cats in tow, of course), start dating because seriously why have I not met anyone yet, its a little ridiculous.... and possibly take out a business loan to really make my clinic what I am dreaming about.

Problem is that i've got this piece of me that is longing to pack up and move on. chalk up the last 9 months to a test of wits, and reconnect with the ocean. I am not one to be landlocked, and this is hard. I'm not homesick for my former home, and i love this city SO much, but I'm homesick for my ocean.

maybe i'll open an acupuncture clinic in hawaii... it is way too cold here anyway.