Brush with destiny.

Lately I’ve been giving a lot of thought to getting rid of all my possessions, ditching the brick and mortar, and hitting the road in a trailer to see the country, pulling over to work between legs of driving. There’ve been so many “doors closing and windows opening” discussions happening in my head—mostly while I’m trying to think about other pressing things, or think about nothing at all. They’re equal parts encouraging and threatening.

A cool thing does happen in the face of immense loss, though: you start filling voids with new things otherwise unavailable. I prefer to think of it as satisfying vitamin deficiencies, though. Keeps trajectories intrepid and upward, attitudes positive, and that kind of thing.

For me it’s been opening myself up to new people and places, which has profoundly shifted my view on my own goals, place in the world, and next steps. Because there are next steps, whether I’m ready to take them or not. You just have to have your eyes peeled for them.

Generally, I crave more new people and more new places—a salve for certain things, yes, but mostly because it’s turned back my internal clock, like regenerating cells I haven’t had since I was 27. To stay put and in any way prevent that from happening seems like a majorly regrettable move. I’m just not sure I have the balls—and my irritating tendency toward logic and structure will almost certainly talk me out of anything other than previously approved responsible-looking plans.

I was pretty into the fact that I ended up at a holiday party in a recording studio where I absolutely did not know a soul the other night. Seems like there are endless possibilities to end up in situations like that, though. I just gotta go find ’em.

Mostly because I’m pretty sure they’re not going to come find me.

In fact, I’m certain they won’t.

Outside of undiscovered pockets of Richmond are other fresh perspectives (and fresh waves of panic).

Another shift in this whole way I’m glancing around myself these days is a massive uncertainty about home. This is nothing terribly new—it tends to happen whenever I go back to Florida from Virginia for an extended period of time. I’ve moved back and forth between the two so many times, it’s easy to be ambivalent about where you belong. Is home where your family is? Where your job is? Where your primary care physician is? Where your friends are? Where your mortgage is?

For me, home always had a very clear definition. That got turned to ash in my hands like lightning striking a paper crane and I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since. Not knowing where you belong is devastating, almost the worst you can feel. And when you’ve worked tirelessly to make a “home” in your perfect image and all of a sudden it’s just stuff and fried paychecks and someone else’s dreams, you naturally look for the next place to go. Even if it’s not the right decision. (Logic; I told ya.)

For a number of years, I thought I was lightyears ahead of everyone. Just killing it. But life is a lot like Candyland—that big ass slide will put you right back where you started if you get cocky. It’s humbling, and in the face of that, understandably, I want answers.

So I visited my very first ever home, a condo on the beach:

I sorta wondered, could I live here again? Am I turning my back on my roots?

Then I visited the home of someone I had just met. Like I said, new people and new places.:

Someone nearly the opposite of me, in a different life phase, with different priorities.

Or could I live in a place like that? I wondered. Attainable. Footloose. Fancy free. Streamlined.

And somewhere in the span of those two days, in a cross-section of total familiarity and the opposite of that, I got a glimpse of what might be possible. A brush with destiny, maybe. A realm so far out of my comfort zone, it inspired me in a way that made me not recognize myself.

Not recognizing myself was maybe the most comforting thing I’ve felt in the last 3 months.

-C.

[Deets for the cheap seats: Free People black tulle skirt + Free People flannel + All Saints leather + Rag & Bone hat, scarf, cut offs and sweater (FUCK!) + Joie Ajax boots.]

“But everybody says this place is beautiful
And you’d be so crazy to say goodbye
But everything’s the same, this town is pitiful
And I’ll be gettin’ out as soon as I can fly.”