Extra Credit Blog: Zen And The Art of Moving On

For the longest time I longed for New York. I longed for its cold, its quiet and the warmth of the fire place in the winter. I missed my Victorian Era house and its view.

It was home and it was all that I knew. When I went back in December, after breathing the warm Phoenix air for six months, I was elated. The joy of seeing friends and family and my old home was incredible, yet it faded quickly as people realized I was not the same, and as I realized that home was not the same. I drove around my small town, bored, longing for punk rock clubs and record stores. Unable to find anything I could relate to, except for my best friend, we left for New York City. 

We drove to the train station in Poughkeepsie, where we were both born, and left. Believing that there was something better on the east coast than what we had always known. 

After an hour and a half, we stepped into Manhattan and made our way to Greenwich Village. In a way I was looking for what I had left behind, and my future. As we walked into the bar that once sat Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan, somehow I knew I would get older and it would be ok. 

We came back from the city, I said my goodbyes to my best friends, which I have gotten very good at doing and I left. I came back to the city of Phoenix, and for the longest time I longed for the comfort of home again... Until one night in a club in Tucson. 

For some reason, at the Congress Club in Tucson, amongst the waves of punches in my back and the ringing in my ears; I woke up and I moved on. When I was younger I played guitar constantly, and I still did, but I only had an acoustic guitar, after selling my two electrics a couple years earlier because I knew I'd be on the road for a while. All of the sudden the crashing of bodies, the tinnitus, and the wall of sound from the electric guitars playing root notes with fifth intervals, made me believe in rock and roll again. I came home, bought a record player and began collecting records... Then I went out and bought another electric guitar, amplifier, and I picked it up like I had never put it down. I was passionate about something again, and I was ready to move on, wherever I was. For some reason that guitar made me want to go to the west coast, again... It reminded me of all the reasons I moved to the West Coast in the first place... The warm air and the cool night breeze and the promise of new nights, in a new place, with new love. 

I realized that I was ready to finally move on, and was done mourning the loss of New York. For better or worse, this is home... And I am proud to say, since accepting this, I've found a job, I've seen places in the city that I have never... I've met new people... And I met a girl. I barely know her, and that's alright, but somewhere in her and in me is the potential or the promise of future nights thinking of her and not longing for New York. 

The semester is ending, and in this semester I have learned a lot. I think the most important thing I have learned though, is that as cliched as it may be... Life is short and New York will always be there, but my life will not be. And I believe, and I know, for as many fateful events in life, we make a conscious choice to live fully each morning when we wake up... And when we go in search of life, it looks for us, too... And sometimes it saves us.