i leave the familiar far behind

so. here we are again. the promise of adventure and the complete lack of sure things has caused me to seek solace in this blog.

funny. i remember so clearly, as if it was yesterday, packing up my things over ten months ago and driving up the 101 to stay with my parents for a night. I wrote my first blog entry to begin that adventure, here in this very same room. it was the beginning of my most recent roadtrip, and how was i to know, the proverbial eve before my life forever changed.

today was a fateful day. for today, i left my home, that i really didn't call my home, to return home to my childhood home, which, ostensibly, isn't my home anymore, only to fly tomorrow to be with the one person that feels more like home than anything else in my world today. (sigh)

i was adamant for many of the last years while living in SB, that it was, in fact, not my home, that i didn't have one, or at least not a real one like the one i had loved and grown up in. i called myself a vagabond. a man in continual transition. "i could leave at any moment", i would say, mantra-esque. i prided myself with having no more stuff than i needed, and being able to more or less fit it all in my car. i loved to be mobile. yet, i always returned to SB, like a Siryn by the sea, it was.

what constitutes a home?

She and i have spoken hushed words to each other. (they find their mark true as it beats). the quiet moments when i see that home is no longer a place but a person.

but that doesn't mean that when i pulled away from ol' Santa Barbara today, that i did not feel the pangs of leaving home. why?

I began to think of all the one way streets, knowing their comings and goings. to think of the best indie-dive bar, where only cash is taken, and only good beer is given. to think of that little hole-in-the-wall joint that makes better mexican tacos than i've had in mexico. to think of the 4 different side streets and back roads i could take to get to one place. to think of a familiar stretch of freeway that i could almost drive asleep (lord knows i've tried...)

the friends, the 'families' that we create. all of it.

look no further. those 'everyday' things that come and go. those are what constitute a home.

so. i said goodbye. no tears, just a sweaty brow and a brimming american-made car. just a handful of stuff and a ton of memories.

i am off to start a very new chapter, and this book's just getting good...