Leaving all the comforts of home…

It’s not easy to leave a place where everything you could possibly wish for is available. I have the next few days to really enjoy myself before it all begins. I’m spending New Years with friends in Joshua tree, have the GRE graduate school placement exam, and then only two days until my flight.

I stare at the matching empty drawers under the kitchen TV. I sit here and click on. It’s funny how you have have endless appliances and space, tables and chair and books, several bathrooms, so much individual space, and still have a mundane life. It’s beautiful outside and here I am killing time.

My little brother didn’t leave his room today. Actually nearly the whole time that I’ve been in town he has been in that room. That’s evidence to me that you can have more and more while it just feels like less and less. And me, here I am in this safe world that I have known for so long. Am I really so suicidal that I wish to leave it? No, I’m really not at all. Actually I am an advocate of living life. I love living it. I am too in love with the existence of this world to not take the chance to explore it.

Will I be ok? I’m asking myself over and over and the obvious answer keeps coming back- yea. I’ll be ok. I will one way or another. I will adjust. I will have time to. I’m trying out a different style of life for me. Living big on a little. Maybe this will change who I am indefinitely. Maybe it won’t.

It’s such a great feeling of autonomy to realize one doesn’t need anything at all, but a body, a few clothes, and some cash. I hope that through having less for this period, I empower myself to beleive that I can survive. I hope that I empower myself to live with less and do it gracefully!

But none the less, the feelings of fear and loss are heavy at my heels. I am unsure of what to expect, what challenges I will encounter, or what will happen while I am gone. I am surrounded in Los Angeles by a family that is a true joy. But we are used to it. At the end of every holiday season we all faced the obligatory goodbyes as I headed back to school. It’s the same thing, just that I’m done with school for the time being. Somehow this goodbye feels harder though