Five days ago I was in Santa
Barbara, I spent one night in LA, headed to Seattle, spent four nights there,
then headed back to LA. Now, I’m cleaning my very dirty room in Santa Barbara.
In the airport hours I’ve wasted thinking instead of studying for my physics
exam, I have been reflecting on transitions. Especially reflecting on the
transition from Santa Barbara to Seattle, and slipping easily between lives
that may never meet each other, it feels like I lead a secret double life. I
bounce between my independent life in Santa Barbara, and sleeping in my
sister’s bed in the room I grew up in. My friends in Santa Barbara don’t know
who I was years ago, and my friends and family in Seattle have seen only a
glimpse of the woman I have become in the little over a year I have spent in
paradise. I have come to love change, and have learned to appreciate the
uncomfortable growing moments in life it produces. I wish that lesson was
easier learned.
I spent most of my time in
high school working in restaurants. I hardly ever showed up to school, and
focused primarily on bucking all authority in my life, which included being
mostly financially independent; I shrugged authority in a few unhealthy ways as well. My parent’s money troubles in my younger years
played a key part in instilling the independence in me still seen today. I held
a supervising position at a Greek restaurant near my house at 17, and was
clocking between 40 and 50 hours a week while finishing up high school. I had
two Advanced Placement (AP) classes, University of Washington’s freshman
composition course, and the remainder of my high school credits such as the
culminating project. I had been working at this Greek restaurant for over a
year, dated the same man long distance for three years, driven the same little
white car, lived in the same house for 12 years, and had the same friends since
elementary school. My life was fixed in a routine from work to school. I had
enough money to pay my bills, fuel my car (usually, rolling in neutral was
necessary occasionally), held high enough grades by showing up for tests, and
consequently had an ever-growing, detrimental fear of change.
A week before graduating
high school, my long-term, rollercoaster of a relationship ended, I got in the
luckiest of car accidents, finally quit my demanding, miserable job at the restaurant,
and left the school I had attended for four years. I had put up with the
insecure, power thriving, awful Spanish manager for too many months because of
the steady income and hours. Leaving the job I had worked at for so long also
required initiating way too much change, I was comfortable in my misery. My
ex-boyfriend was jealous, unsteady, and emotional but ending a three-year
relationship also meant initiating an immense amount of change that I was in
great subconscious fear of. When I came to a halt after shooting across two
lanes of traffic after running a red light and clipping a 15 passenger van
going 45 mph, my first thought was not about injuries or how lucky I was to be
alive, it was instead that this would cause a lot of work to deal with. This
change was also pushed on me. This accident disrupted my norm, and that was
more difficult to deal with that seeing that I could have killed someone else,
or myself by not paying enough attention.
I ended up with silly
Celicia (my current car, see previous posts) after totaling the Daewoo, I got
back into the same disastrous relationship, and ended up with a fresh
perspective on my parents and their ability to back me up in all situations.
Having so many comfortable aspects in my life shaken up also allowed me to be
so much more excited to head out to college. Somewhere inside me I knew I
needed to get out. I could not be comfortable forever, and was ecstatic to
leave for Santa Barbara in the fall of 2010.
The same guy I had dated
since my freshman year of high school was living in San Diego when I left for school, and
I thought it would finally fix our problems if I was able to hop on a train and
visit him whenever I wanted to. What I discovered when I got to college was instead that we
were no longer compatible in so many ways. Breaking from my routine in Seattle
and moving to a beach town taught me to relax. I learned that life goes on, no
matter the situations. Anxieties are wastes of important emotions, and today is
the day to think about. The more relaxed, well-adjusted, and confident I became
through finally having time to grow away from a stressful job, the more
jealous, nervous, and anxious my boyfriend got. Being within a few hundred
miles of each other did not solve any of our problems. Finally in January of 2011
I initiated the biggest change I had ever initiated, aside from moving 1200 miles from my life,
and ended the relationship. Although it was a difficult change, especially hard
on him, I was once again given more room to grow.
Not every change we undergo
in life is drastic. Despite this however each change is necessary. When given a
new situation, a difficult one, we are given the opportunity to be stretched and discover what we
are truly capable of. Learn to look for these difficulties, and look at them
with the perspective of teaching.
Bouncing between lives from
Santa Barbara to Seattle keeps me on my toes with life. It’s the oddest feeling
to slip easily between the friends I grew up with, and the friends that have
never met my family or seen where I came from. Taking life one day at a time
helps to deal with even the most unexpected surprises and transitions. Never
get too comfortable. Stretch yourself. Find the few important things in life that make it worth
living, and pay little attention to the rest.
