The Return Home

Back home now, North Park, San Diego. Glad to have the day off today before I go back to work, I was expecting to work my first day back, but contractor wanted to have the first Monday of the new year off, which is perfect actually, I’m still on east coast time. I normally get up pretty early anyway but today I’d gotten up a lot earlier than usual, something like 3 am. Going to be a challenge adjusting to this time zone again, but at least it’s not the other way around, trying to adjust to the east, rather take it slow again on west coast time.

So how do I feel now that it’s all said and done, and I’m here again. Well first things first, after a trip like mine, where you had spent so much time so far removed from nature in major cities, completely inundated by people and the world at large, you have to get back in it again. I took my dog for a walk up a peak in mission trails, just him and I. In so many ways I prefer activities like that compared to what I did, or at least need that in my daily life to reset myself, keep me level headed. Aside from that I need to get back into the rhythm of everyday exercise again. I’d gotten around by foot and was walking everyday, but I wasn’t really working out like I normally do like when I’m home. Definitely have to get myself back into it again.

I suppose the best way that describes how I feel now that I’m back is a little like Frodo Baggins at the end of Lord of the Rings, where he’d just gone through this tremendously transformative journey, and the world he’d known, the world he loves is still exactly the same, the people oblivious, even unsympathetic, uncaring, just a lot of smiles and nods and “oh okay…so what else is new?”s. More or less that.

I don’t feel the same as I did before, maybe more pushed into being my actual self and recognize who that is in all this. Everything here IS the same, but I am not, my feeling towards things, and what I am to do. And MUCH LIKE Frodo, I’m just sort of recounting the things that happened, writing them down, sorting them out, getting an idea of what’s next for me. I know i’m going to be here a while, it’s the life I made for myself and it’s afforded me the ability to do a lot of things that a lot of people can’t, and I am forever grateful for that, but it’s not for me and this is not going to be the place I’ll always be, where I’m supposed to be, I’ll have to leave here one day and find out where that is.

MY GOD, I’m realizing now that suddenly my entire life can be reduced down to the plot of the lord of the rings, lmfao! I can keep going with the comparisons, but I won’t…..okay one more!

Frodo had to carry around the one ring, but the longer he carried it, the more it was killing him. In the end he almost didn’t get rid of it, and if he hadn’t, it’d have destroyed him. The way I’ve been feeling in life for a while now is like I’ve been carrying around all these thoughts weighing me down that I just don’t have to anymore, things that in their way have become all too comfortable, familiar, that I’ve gotten used to, and in some warped masochistic way, though their slowly killing me to keep, feels like I love them too much to let them go. They’ve become the things that make up my ego, my identity, this caricature of myself, and if I lost that then I’d have to face who I really am, and that can be terrifying, looking at myself in the mirror in all honesty. Most times I’d rather carry around that burden of false identity, overlay and mask what’s inside to be pleasant and personable, rather than admit my fears and insecurities or true thoughts and feelings, which for for me is hard to do, and let’s face it, it usually alienates oneself from others once you start telling the truth. We’re all edited versions of self, cause if we’re too real, too unique, too different, than we’ve stepped too far out of line, and that’s not sociably acceptable, so we carry-on with the niceties, the pleasantries make pretend everything’s great when they aren’t.

There’s a character I play in my mind, a role to be this hidden figure walking about, looking at things, taking them in, interpreting them, secretly creating, holding some secret knowledge that the world isn’t ready for, but that’s BULLSHIT, that’s so self righteous and self centered to carry on feeling that way, not putting out those ideas into the world to truly be battle tested, that’s the only true way to find out if all this ideology is up to par. Turn out I’m just a dude, and really all I’ve been this whole time is just an asshole living with depression way too long not being able to admit it, talk about it, and get over and get on with it. Stop carrying this around with me so much, let it go and start doing what I need to do. I’ve such a fear of abandonment that I’d rather just be alone, but that’s not what I want either, I’d like to be able to share in the times that I’ve had, all the struggles, the strife, the victories of life, it ought to be known, it ought to be shared. I’m trying my best to stop being afraid to be me or that others won’t accept me, I need stop trying to impress people that don’t me anyway no matter what I do and just be myself. Fact is I am damn proud of myself too, there’s a lot I've done , am doing, and can do that not everyone can, and i’ve done it on my own, next to no help from anyone. Still there’s an emptiness inside, a void I try and overshadow by over achieving, and maybe that recognition as vain as it is to need, is kind of part of the human experience. We want to be validated in some way, helps us to know if we’re on the right track, or at least feel like we are, maybe something i’d always been denied so now deny myself, or don’t even believe it when I hear it. Anyway, it’s been my cross to bare, my ring to bare, but I’ve been dealing with it, and I may never be fully rid of it, but I recognize it for what it is, sort of a crutch, but I don’t need it any long, and need to learn to live without it.