Its the first day of spring and I have definitely sprung. Today I felt alive as I was speeding home from my massage, loose and warm. The moon roof open, windows down and the radio turned so far up it became my heartbeat. The soft sun and warm air speeding in on me as i cruised down the road in my new car. I felt alive, awake and present. I felt like i could do anything take any risk and accomplish anything. I had just entered the pastures of Enumclaw when I decided to take a detour. Decided to change the station and go straight instead of turning left to home. And as i passed the fields of the city of my childhood, smelled the air of the place that Ive called home for nearly 10 years i felt like i could do this. I can tell my anxiety to fuck off and make the changes that need to be made. At that moment i could have told the world to fuck off and packed my car.
I could have filled the trunk with necessities and memories, backseat covered with blankets for my dog and the passenger seat full of the only necessity i really need; my love. i could have grabbed my camera, hung it from my neck and captured everything that i saw from here to California. Backups on I5 and pissed off commuters. The area of nothing but desert from southern Oregon to central California. Potty breaks for the puppy at cheap truck stops and the silhouette of the dark haired, freckled skinned, goof ball that has morphed into the man that I love; in the dusky minutes before the sun sets below the horizon. We would take detours onto the 101 just to see the ocean. To center us, to remember where we are and why we're doing this, to remember that its just him and i creating this life, creating this memory that is our early twenties. To remember that its in our hands. We would park under the bright stars of California in the warm night air, puppy asleep in the back, us laying on a fleece blanket on the hood. Talking but not. Talking with our bodies, understanding each other for the new people we have become. Two lovers not new to each other in reality but in fantasy fresh and exciting. Hearts beating and sweat beading on our foreheads partially from the heat, partially from the excitement of being someplace new, someplace forbidden, and partially from the passion seeping from our pores.
We would pull into the cheapest motels we could find. Backpacks full of only the bare minimum, bad take out food in our hands. We'd spread out on the hard queen sized mattress, pass around food and crack open our laptops. On a mission to upload, edit, and share the photos of my life. To review the previous day, pick out the most inspiring and edit to create the perfect immortal memory. Uploading to Flickr and updating my blog so that i can always remember what this time was like when my life was young. When my eyes were wide and my responsibilities few. And then we would fall asleep exhausted from the constant go, run down from not having a place to call home; in a bed not ours, with our puppy content between us feeling safe. And then we would go, keep going, keep pushing on until we drive through a place that feels like home to us. A place where we could see ourselves grocery shopping, working jobs that we'll tire of, and setting up a home to call ours. Would it be Santa Monica? San Luis Obispo? Would it be a place our ears had never heard before? We would be home and our life would be new. I would be free of the job, the experiences, and the heartache that transformed me into a woman. We would talk long hours on the phone to our families. The supporting, loving, unconditional families that we should have had from the beginning. And every three months we would make that familiar drive north to visit the town of our youth, to drive the streets we drove at 17, and to see the family and friends that helped shape our beings.
I would feel at home in the state that birthed me, at home in the glory that is the sun. California Dreamin. And we would live there proud of ourselves for changing what needed to be changed. All forgiven of the raised voices and jagged lines drawn in the sand of our past. We would be new. And we would no longer be afraid of not being the 15 and 16 year old children we once were. We would no longer be afraid of not being nestled under the protective wings of our parents. Death Cab would be a constant. The sound track of our lives year after year. "You may tire of me, as our December sun is setting, cause I'm not who I used to be"... But we wont be afraid. We'll grow together, laugh together, and be careless together. We'll accept that we wont ever tire of each other, we'll be content that we did it. We made it. Against the statistics. Against the nay sayers, against the natural order of things. We grew together from the moment we fell in love standing in the concrete courtyard of our youth. Thinner than now, more immature than now, more hopeful than now. Two self absorbed kids of 15 and 16 meeting for the first time. Two kids who's lives were changed forever as our blue/brown eyes met for the first time. Looking into the eyes of our future. Proud of ourselves that we fought the fight. Because no, love is not patient, it is not kind, and it does get jealous and boastful, it is not easy and it takes work but thats why its so rewarding. That is why its the most sought after, that is why we feel at home in each others arms.
And so we would live there. The day to day. We would become California natives, find jobs we don't particularly like and "peel the freckles from our shoulders...". We would stay, for months? Years? Decades? We wouldn't know but that will be OK because we did it together. We did this. We took the steps to make the change and we survived. We're alive and in love, happy and free.
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