Floating

Leave your hometown. Your home state. Traverse regions of the country, (or continent), you grew up in - at least once in your life. It’s worth the try. All you have to lose it time. If you don’t, you may hold onto regret like smuggled goods, knowing that it’s a risk to carry and a danger to drop. Equally as enticing, you could discard the dread by moving with a clean slate and you may find the risk is worth a shot.

Regret adds more weight to our baggage than our illest mistakes. However, we can turn poor decisions into our greatest lessons. On the contrary, there’s nothing to learn from a wish or a want that hasn’t happened yet.

Don’t let your wishes turn into a ‘why’:

Why didn’t I take the chance?

Why do I feel like something’s missing?

Why am I still here?

The answers:

Fear.

Doubt.

Second guessing yourself.

I guess if you’re ok with staying the same, if monotony doesn’t cause malaise and if repeating behaviors while expecting different results doesn’t seem insane then I’m the one with the distorted brain.

Though through my 20’s, I was playing a twisted game. Gambling my chances to grow while blaming the mirror and blowing smoke. Dating players, thus playing myself thinking I could win over men with love despite dealing from a hand of depression and drugs.

Sure, I went after aspirations and made a name for myself. I was under the impression I could reach my grandiose goals while under the influence of comparison, constantly competing with a number that never grew into the metric I wanted it to.

I also ate psychedelics like well, chocolate;

my preferred consumption of magic mushrooms. There was no skimping on actual chocolate or ice cream or fries for that matter. Booze granted me a buzz. Weed alleviated the harshness of gravity. MDMA allowed me to defy reality. All while psilocybin gave me a reason to believe I could achieve anything. This serotonin secretion boosted my self-esteem as I floated in a daydream. Though once I sobered up and I relied on my own supply, I began to see that my plans had potholes; a weak infrastructure of ideas lacking an empirical base to support such wishful thinking.

Now, with over 100 days of sobriety under my belt, it doesn’t make much sense for me to stay in the same place I sauntered as a stoner. As a ‘high’ functioning addict, I could still hustle with half of my consciousness, making it by while hardly making a living.

I was floating. Like a plastic bag in the wind. Skin without a body, a game without objection. Floating is fine for a while when you don’t yet know what you want. But to have a target and fail to shoot, your carefree nature will turn concrete. Skin wrinkles, the game gets old. That plastic bag pinned by inevitable rainfall and wilted into waste.

For years, my ‘THANK YOU’ bag carried hopes for LA. Sobriety enabled me to carry more insight, where I contemplated options with a clear head and ultimately decided to go the other way. To another infamous city notorious for sky high rent amidst the high rise lofts. New York, the land of opportunity, will not only demand my attention for safety, it will require me to rewire the ways of which I handle money, escalating the game of work and play.

Drugs and drinking and the subsequent activities which follow such acts are a much greater risk for me than moving to a city with unclear plans. However, I have a place to stay, some savings and an open, determined mind. I may not have a job lined up, but my intention is written down.

Stating our purpose and reasoning behind any move directs our future decisions, which pacify the process of any seismic change.

Get clear. Get serious. And get going on that idea of yours. Don’t let a thought remain up in air. Write it down and set your deadline to do that thing you’re here to do.

Then pack your bags.

Remember - when you leave, you can always return home. There’s lessons in challenges but there’s nothing to learn from what you’ll always regret.