LifeofKare

The essence of life is learning when to hold on and when to let go.

I typed this quote furiously into my notes the other day as I began planning my journey home to the Bay Area, dashing across the room in a sudden haze. When your life is a constant state of limbo that’s neither here nor there, believe me when I say, there is always a heavy nagging pull from all directions.

Ever seen the movie Chocolat? Well if you haven’t, here’s a brief rundown of how the main character and her daughter live their lives: cursed by the will of the wind, they uproot their chocolate shoppe in search of the next unsuspecting village. I’m just now starting to think that perhaps the plot line of my life runs congruent to this heartwarming movie. From the moment I left home for college in Boston, I’ve been plagued with five-hour plane rides that made for three-hour time differences which meant my fair share of miscommunication and “I can’t deal with the distance”. And I despised my parents for this: brooding over the implications of the duality of my reality.

As the end of my undergraduate career crept near, I, the unsuspecting victim, bathed in the perils of a scattered heart. A heart divided, sprinkled, carved, and etched. A heart willingly offered to and shared amongst the most earnest people and places.

Since May of this year, I’ve left friends back east to return to my western roots. And in doing so, continued on my journey to the southern-most end of California, San Diego. For the duration of this month-long escapade, I’ve trained hard to become a certified yoga instructor, met a few more soul sisters, eaten enough Mexican food to hold me off for a little while (who am I kidding, I’ll never be satisfied), and sprained my ankle (badly) at Woogie Weekend. Although I would have liked to have spent this last week scaling the cliffs of Black’s Beach or just doing a few sun salutations, I’m taking this as a blessing in disguise: a time to heal and reflect.

My heart is heavy but filled with love. The moon is full and bright, just as it was upon my arrival nearly a month ago. I feel a tug at my soul: an uncontrollable urge to start crying and to tell my parents that I’m never coming “home”, that this place of beauty and majesty has somehow felt more “home” to me than four years in a snow-drenched suburb. But as with the wind in Chocolat, the ebb and flow of the tides, the seasons of plenty and the seasons of want, and even the phases of the moon, I too, must learn when to hold on and when to let go.

To my new friends here in San Diego and to the unfathomable amount of thunderous laughter shared between us, thank you. Thank you for showing me that life cannot be lived without passion nor the inexplicable drive for growth and love. Thank you for becoming new branches of an ever-changing tree, seamlessly intertwined within my heart and soul. And as for the future, I know that distance makes such a trivial difference when faced with such a resilient bond. Thank you, I love you, but I must go, just for now.