Back and forth, back and forth. LA, NYC, LA...I'm not the first person to be shredded into ragged wisps, pulled from one coast to another, my life in the East, my work out West.
Many people have a loyalty to the weather of SoCal, the energy of NYC. Me? I just want to be home where I belong. I've probably spent more of my life traveling than pretty much anyone who doesn't work for an airline or freighter company. I learned that the concept of home evaporates after a while, that in the end, one must choose between solitary adventure and a support structure with friends and family.
Can you have both?
Sure.
You can move abroad permanently and build a life elsewhere. But constant movement generates a helluva lot of firing synapses, novelty, adventure, and mostly, that part of my brain that needs to spill all this input onto the written page. God, I miss that in my current life of routine. But you can't have constant adventures AND be part of the lives back home without spending time at home. That's just a kind of calculation, simple math for the soul. Something desk jockeys can find reassuring as they battle the mind-numbing deathly boredom of routine while they see friends off having epic, year-long adventures.
There is no right or wrong in this equation, but there is a lot of x=x, while y=y. X never equals y, or sometimes it appears to but that's an illusion. In the end, x reverts to x, y to y. A bit of algebra for how to live. Dabble in one or the other, but ultimately, dabbling too long in y results in a life of y.
Sure.
You can move abroad permanently and build a life elsewhere. But constant movement generates a helluva lot of firing synapses, novelty, adventure, and mostly, that part of my brain that needs to spill all this input onto the written page. God, I miss that in my current life of routine. But you can't have constant adventures AND be part of the lives back home without spending time at home. That's just a kind of calculation, simple math for the soul. Something desk jockeys can find reassuring as they battle the mind-numbing deathly boredom of routine while they see friends off having epic, year-long adventures.There is no right or wrong in this equation, but there is a lot of x=x, while y=y. X never equals y, or sometimes it appears to but that's an illusion. In the end, x reverts to x, y to y. A bit of algebra for how to live. Dabble in one or the other, but ultimately, dabbling too long in y results in a life of y.
I'm delusional. I suck at algebra.
Anyway.
Today, as on every New Year's Day since I opted into traditional-day-job lifestyle, I caught an early morning flight from Newark to Los Angeles.
Was I glad to leave, considering it was brutally cold in Jersey City? Considering I spent most of my week caulking around windows, putting wood filler in the flooring cracks, taping plastic to the hundred-year-old door, digging the electric blanket Turbo gave me out of storage? Yes and no. I couldn't wait to get back into the warm weather of Burbank, but Burbank means work, and work means stress and exhaustion. Such is life. Why should I be any different?
No upgrade today, but look at this view! I definitely scored the right seat.
When your life is x, it's the little things.
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