“I’m always anxious thinking I’m not living my life to the fullest, you know? Taking advantage of every possibility, making sure I’m not wasting one second of the little time I have.” -Clementine
It’s times like this when I should be sleeping, but something keeps me from going straight to bed. It’s almost three and I wanted to go to church in the morning. But the thought of going to bed unfulfilled leaves me restless. I was lying before, it’s not insomnia, it’s dissatisfaction.
As I finished writing for the night, I thought that for some reason I should watch a movie, even though I’d rather sleep. I haven’t actively watched a movie in a long time.
Sometimes when I think about how many things I do throughout the day that I don’t enjoy doing I get anxious. What am I doing? Why am I doing it? More importantly, why am I getting so upset?
I still feel the wear of LA on my mind. Compared to where I’ve been, LA is startling. At first it was in a bad way, and now it’s in a good way. When I first arrived here, I was angry at God for so insistently clearing the path for me to come. Okay, I get it. This isn’t a feeling, this is knowledge: I’m supposed to be here. I was angry and sad as I felt the bonds of comfort being ripped out of me. My family, my friends, all important to me and I to them. It was not an unfamiliar feeling: I know what loss is like, I know what it’s like to realize something or someone in your life has run its course and it’s time to let it be. There will always be the wound, the damages done. We learn from getting hurt; we grow from ruin.
I was mad at God for making me grow yet again. My attitude was that if growth came at the cost of pain, I didn’t want it. I’d rather stay the way I was. I was tired.
I’ve since realized that growth doesn’t come from just one incident where a thorn is plucked from the skin, but from too many to count. It happens every day if you let it. Sometimes it happens whether you let it or not.
I’ve been hiding behind routine and my cool nature as an excuse for not embracing growth at every opportunity I get. And the routine is killing me. It’s the quickest way to carelessness. And by carelessness I mean unfeeling, robotic, passionless, actions which will only lead to complacency, the opposite of growth.
I realize I’m using a lot of abstract words here, but I know that the dissatisfaction which keeps me from sleep comes from routine, not taking advantage of every possibility only because I’m afraid it might make me change or grow. What’s so great about this shell that I work so hard to keep intact? The work it takes is not worth the fruit that it bears.
I know I have not been updating all of my California experiences on this blog. I’m sure I could talk about what I did and what I saw, but it doesn’t really mean anything to me. What I feel like writing about is how my time here has been a spiritual journey that I wasn’t expecting. When I first got to LA, I had dreams every night that I was going home, back to comfort, back to what I already know. Now I have dreams about going home and regretting it. I used to be afraid of coming here because of the unknown. But when I think of going home, to routine, to complacency, my stomach turns a little. Going back to Ohio scares me.
I’ve got two weeks. It’s time to embrace opportunities for growth instead of waiting for them to be forced on me.
“Even in this eternal city, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.” -Elizabeth Gilbert
