The Clarity of Hindsight

OK, ok, ok...I know you are all thinking that I am the most compulsive blogger known to man, but I couldn't pass this up. I really just couldn't. Have you ever wished that you could rewind to some other part of life and watch it again as it replayed knowing now what you could only hope to know then? I got to do that tonight, er, this early morning. I did a Google search for my name and "blog" to see if anything was found as a result, and to my dismay, my old LiveJournal appeared from three years ago...wow. WOW!

Reading over my thoughts and ideas, and the lies that I told myself was...well, funny mostly. And that time in my life seems so very far from right now, to the point that I was reading about people I couldn't recall. "I said hello to Patrick." - who? I was still calling The Future Californian, something equivalent to "Cali," I was 2 years into the 5 year drama of The Musician, and I had just decided to take actions geared toward transferring schools, was about to move from Suburban Sprawl to Metro Nashville, I had just applied for the Hotel as an alternative to "hell" as I described my previous employment - ::laughing:: Oh, man, had I only known how horrific the hotel gig would be! No tolerance or desire for drinking - was I even reading about myself???

It's hard to believe that was me just 3 years ago at the ripe age of...20 - thinking I had it all figured out. It's crazy - CRAZY - to relive those days through my own words at the time but to feel like a stranger looking in on my own life...well, maybe not a total stranger:

"The day camp I work for took a field trip to this awesome cave in "Middle-of-Nowhere", TN and one of the things the guide did was show us how dark it was inside when all of the lights were turned out. One minute I'm standing there counting campers and in control and then the lights go out and it's just me and the darkness."

...somedays I still feel like that (p.s., I actually remember the trip to the cave). Although I feel estranged from the person I was then, I am infinitely grateful for the lessons I have learned and for where I am because of them. There are parts of me that I miss: I did yoga pretty regularly at the Y, I grew veggies in my back yard, I had the luxury of TiVo and a cheap house payment, BUT I wouldn't trade this life for the world because eventually it got too hot to garden, I learned to live without television, and everything I could ever need became reachable in 10 minutes or less.

It all happens for a reason.