Backwards with Time

This song is so appropriate for a variety of reasons.  I spent the last night I was home with some of my nearest and dearest  friends, the Kenney sisters and Jackie.  Per usual, there was mucho listening to the Avett Brothers.

Now, en route back to San Francisco I’m having a glass of red wine having just finished a phenomenal book and contemplating the state of my life.

After a constant weekend of being on the go, I am alone, listening to music, writing; I’ve never been more grateful for a six hour flight in my life.

How irrevocably my life has changed in the past 8 months.

“Some say with age our purpose comes clear, 
I see the opposite happening here.
Are we losing the fight?
Are we growing backwards with time?”

I used to know exactly what I wanted.  I would spend my summers in Rockland hanging out with my friends and family. Eventually I grew restless.

Times changed.

Rockland is no longer a desired place to live for me.

People have changed and most of my friends have moved on.

But when it comes to the matter of family how do we move on?  After living several months in San Francisco with a serious lack of love, in comparison to the immense amount of love when surrounded by so many friends and family I have back home in Maine, I was truly humbled on this last trip home just how much lighter life is when you let that much love in.

Spending some time with my brother and his girlfriend I was genuinely envious. My brother, most days, is content and happy with his life. A fisherman who loves a girl, his friends and his family. He spends his free time either hanging out with his best friends, his love or doing handy work for my parents.

A part of me is envious of that. I am envious that it could have so easily been a life I’d chose. A simple life.

However, when it comes to the familiar and the unknown I’ve always chosen the unknown.  A part of me is much more comfortable with it.

My question now is: is choosing the unknown a weakness? Is it instead choosing what we know the harder option? Being satisfied with what we know and wanting what we have, not constantly striving to have what we want?

Is my life now a case of wanting what I cannot have? And not wanting what I have? Honestly, I’m not sure.

I know what I have is an incredible heart and love and loyalty for my family and friends but I also know I have a talent as a writer and a love for travel.  How do I equally honor both those things?

Sigh.

“I was young and love was fun, now it’s so serious.
Now all the fun has equal pain, 
There’s something wrong with this.”