Bye, Couch

Today, my couch left. Spliced with green and yellow fabric--a corduroy pattern that my grandparents chose in the mid 80's, the couch was close to 250lbs, built during a time when you used the heaviest wood and steel because things were made to last, and last it did. The couch was impressively difficult to move and so it carried with it an unwieldily aura that always left me intimidated to take it along the course of my life.

As I a child, I slept on that couch when we visited the west coast. As an adult, that couch followed me on my first move out of college into my bungalow in Redlands. I remember watching the world cup and late nights where I simply passed out on it, the TV humming in the background as the Eternal Sunshine of my dreams. That couch was the oldest thing I had in my possession.

Now I look at my apartment and realize how weird it is to see merely an imprint. It was just a piece of furniture, but by God it's a pained release. That couch was, in many ways, my anchor. Without it, I'm unsettled.

My Move

My life, in one month, has drastically changed. 

I've rediscovered my sense of self and my faith in me has risen many times over. Some of this comes from being kicked out of Portland and yet feeling like it was a gift. Some of it arises out of my social reconstruction over the past couple months. I have solid friends in Portland. People I love and care about very much. For the first many months here, friendships were sparse and disingenuous--partly because I constructed them in my mind that way. It took me a while to truly appreciate Portland and its people, but I do now. 

A few months ago, a good friend told me that their biggest worry about the way I've aged is that my cynical side was destroying the part of me that used to believe in love in a very unbridled, exciting way. I had, until lately, made love more scientific, more sanitized. 

But my cynical side has now been, for an undetermined amount of time, crushed and destroyed. And that makes me as curious and adventurous as I remember myself being 5-6 years ago. An absolute and disengaging part of me has been revisited, as if I showed up at a grave and instead it was empty and attached was a note from the deceased saying they were partying in Paris. It is refreshing. I have no expectations as I'm trying to prepare for everything, but I have no lack of hope. Thanks Barack!

As I head back to the Bay Area, I am returning to my youth, family I've missed, and unfinished endeavors. I am purposefully only taking what I can fit in my car--it's time to have a new start. I need to remind myself that I am not these things I own, but simply a capable person. 

Eviction is Awesome.

So I got evicted. All the one bedroom apartments in my complex are
being remodeled. In a way, it's a blessing. Most of the people I know
in Oregon are gone by the end of this month. So I'll be leaving too.
Last day is the 14th for work and I should be down in San diego a few
days later.

Oh life how quickly you change.

Sent from my iPhone