The Feels

Ever since I've left East Mesa, I feel like I've shed some part of my identity. I moved to Mesa from California 25 years ago, and I've never lived anywhere else in AZ. In fact, I have lived within the same square mile mile for 21 years....talk about a rut! My life was there, my church, my community, everything that was part of my daily life, now 30 miles away. I'm still close, but now it seems so far away. Once I left, I started having lots of emotions and thoughts not unknown to me, but it's been a while since I had them. I don't necessarily think it's related to leaving East Mesa, more like leaving the familiar is causing me to reexamine everything I thought I knew. Getting out of my "rut" has produced some serious reactions in me, and I don't think any of it is bad. Like an extreme herbal cleanse, this move has released emotions I didn't realize I still had. My head is clear, and I can conjure up thoughts and ideas more quickly than every before. My dreams are CRAZY and VIVID. Since I don't drink as much as I used to, my delta brain waves are uninterrupted, resulting in a kaleidoscope of thoughts, emotions, urges and God knows what else. It's almost as if every emotion and thought and business idea I had suppressed has come back to visit at once. I feel like I am more capable, more excited and more excitable. I don't feel trapped anymore, I'm no longer living in a museum, where I can't talk loudly, run, laugh or touch anything. The familiar can be very comforting, but it can also be constricting and depressing. The ruts we carve into our life paths can run deep, so deep that one day we look up and we can't even remember why we started down that path, and now we can't possibly get out of them. When the physical patterns become mundane, our minds inexorably follow. No great idea ever came from a man in his rocking chair, content with his drink and a good book. Those days will come for me, and when they do, I will embrace them.... but not today. Not yet.