Escape.

Sometimes when things are difficult I have these thoughts, like what if I hoped on a plane back to LA drove to Santa Maria walked right into my parents home and into the arms of my mother who is safe and nurturing and loving and I can be a kid again.  Because the truth is sometimes I feel like I’m only just a kid.  Sometimes I want to be back in that space where things are easy and comfortable.  That’s the yin.  The yang in me says no, get out of your comfort zone, see the world, don’t settle, challenge yourself…or else it’s not a life.  The  theme always running through my head is always to live your life so you will have no regrets in those last moments just before you die and you can say, yes I lived and loved and I was happy and it was a good life.  I think I think this way largely because my dad died suddenly at an early age, he was only 36, and now that I am turning 30 I understand just how young that really is.  So I know we can go suddenly at any time.

Nearing the anniversary of his death, thoughts of him always creep into my thoughts just like they creeped into this post that started with me just having feelings of wanting to escape.  It’s nearing 15 years and this anniversary is significant to me because it begins the point where I have now been without him longer than I was with him.  That’s significant for some reason.  I don’t know why.

Okay now I’m starting to think all those thoughts that make me sad, like he’ll never meet my husband, he never knew that I traveled and went to UCLA just like he dreamed, he won’t know his grandchildren, and I never got to be friends with him the way an adult child eventually does with their parents and learn who he was inside… instead of thinking these things I’m going to think about how grateful I am that his death made me appreciate life.  I’m going to continue trying to live my life to the fullest to honor him.  That’s the best I can do.

I miss you dad, spending 15 years without you has sucked balls big time!