Bones Straining

Memory is a funny thing.

Being back in San Diego 2.5 years after moving away gets the nostalgia machine fired up. I remember fondly the days of walking to the beach, cuddling our pups in our small OB cottage, slinging drinks and shooting photos and managing the hostel, making what felt like lots of money and spending it fast, brunches and afternoons and warm nights out with friends. ❤️

“Being back here makes me feel like a failure sometimes,” I say to Zachary.

“WHY?” He seems genuinely puzzled.

“Because we didn’t make the California dream work. We left. I thought we might live here forever and we left. I feel like we failed.”

“What are you talking about?” He says. “We did super well when we lived here. We wanted to live here for 1 year and we stayed for 5. We were mostly happy and successful. But you said you felt like a failure when we lived here so long because you weren’t traveling. You said you would feel like a failure if you stayed. So we left.”

Yep, that’s me. Always feeling like there’s something more I should be doing.

“Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” Yes. So much straining. For as long as I can remember I’ve felt this heavy weight in life and choices. Every choice I make causes the death of a million other choices that don’t get to exist. This used to trip me up a lot and sometimes it still does, but realizing I am a soul that gets to evolve through a million different lifetimes helps. ✨

It’s a beautiful and privileged thing to feel the spacious capacity for happiness in all the numerous alternative potentialities of my life. The way I remember it now, I could have stayed in San Diego and been happy. I could have continued trying to be a real “digital nomad” hopping from country to country, or a full time #vanlife-er working odd jobs and been happy. I have had options even through my struggles because I have been super blessed. 🙏🏻

That’s not what happened in this version. I do trust the evolution of my life has unfolded in a way that enables me to become the absolute best version of myself in this existence. The last few years of rapid change and growth have left my head spinning at times. “How did I get here?” “How is this my life?” My mind likes to tell me “things were better then” but I’ve learned enough to know that my mind’s skewed version isn’t always accurate. The truth always is, things are how they are now. Let it be. I appreciate all my memories and try try try to over-analyze the current step less, however much my bones might be straining.