As Far as the Future Goes

(Wednesday, March 14, 2007)

"First time speeds up, and then it slowly trickles down,
The first thing to stop is the music and terrestrial sounds."

             I'm heading to Berkeley in a week, and I don't really have any intention of coming back.  That's not to say that I won't, hell, if I did everything I said, I'd still be over there.
            I guess this all came into focus around my Sociology class the other day, when I tried to convince a teacher of mine to let me take an exam early.  She told me she would not, because that would mean she'd have to make an entirely new test, and to add to that, she does not allow make-up exams.  She repeated herself several times.
            It's worth 20% of our grade.
            Under normal circumstances I probably would have found a way to soften her up and let her know that I was worthy of the 5 minutes it would take to reword a couple of questions, but instead I took it as a sign.
           I made it a point to leave her class while she was in mid lecture.  Allowing the sound of the creaky old entrance door to fill the room, and let the almost artificial looking sunlight encompass its entirety.  
            I've never been in such a predicament before.  As a matter of fact, I've never found myself in a situation I didn't talk my way out of.  Just this morning, I was going about 60 in a residential zone to pass some slow moving senior citizen, when a cop on a motorcycle flicked on his lights and sped up to my side.  He peered into my window, with an almost emotionless face, and for some reason, he pulled away and drove off.  "We'll all float on. . . "
            Just my luck I suppose, as it happened when I enrolled for college this semester, being granted every class I petitioned for, as well as immediate registration the day of.
            Maybe it's just my perception of reality, but for me, my life has always been laid in solid singular directions, I can never go in more than one.  Everything will work out if I choose one path.   I guess I'd have to explain this in further depth.  There were 30 kids petitioning for my English class and 3 open spots.  We all had to draw out a card; I needed that class, well, mostly because I love writing.  I pulled out the Ace of Hearts.  I might have just considered that exceptional luck, if I hadn't gotten into my other 3 classes in similar ways.  Everything works out for me, if I understand my goal, and have a sense of direction.  Just like the first time I moved to Berkeley, I found money when there was none.
            Right now my situation regards education, if I pop out of here again, that's 4 more incompletes on my already building list.  Regardless, I'm sure any future essay I write will get me into a great college.
            I have all A's so far this semester, and a nicely building GPA, I guess what I have to really decide is whether or not I should give that all up for what I consider happiness.  If I stay down here, my ideology will change.  It's inevitable, in order for me to gain comfort here; my thought process has to change.  Right now my mind is beautiful, just the way I like it.  I can spin nicely worded poetry again.  A few more months of this and I'll lose the quality of my thoughts.  The kind of interaction I set myself up for down here is much different from what I have come to love in Northern California. .
          
            I was sitting at the beach a few days ago, on a very cloudy day.  It was hard to see the sun.  Aside from the rays of light that penetrated the holes and cracks of the cumulus clouds; you would hardly know it was there.  It reminded me of what I'm going through.  I have an overall goal, but aside from knowing that it exists, the little spots of sunshine, and imagining how I will feel when I reach my desired outcome, the only thing I really know is that it is there.
            I sat on the bench that overlooked the Corona Del Mar beachfront.  I was in writer's clothes.  That is all I have left, nothing new, just old shirts and pants that are losing their color from consistent washing and general lack of new additions to my clothing line.  Being in the negatives, for months now, I don't really have much of a choice.
            But style is something I no longer have a great desire for.  Where I'm going, I won't need it.  It's just a matter of time before I'm back in a place that I love.  Less than a week to be exact.  Everything seems to be based around that element of time.  I can be with her again, for a lack of using any stronger words, the first girl I ever truly adored.  I could live with my best friend Robert Wagner; in the very same room I rented out months ago.  All this will be gone by summer time though.  Even Rob and I may be on very different terms.
            But what is time, really?  I've sat on this Corona Del Mar bench several times.  It's even included in a poem I've written.
            The memories are all crowded here.  It's the same bench I sat in 5 years ago when I considered the idea that I was sitting 2500 miles away from the Beaches of Virginia and everything that mattered to me.
            The same bench I sat in two years ago, when I wrote a 16-page letter to my school newspaper.  The event that changed the way I viewed my position in society, the first time I ever considered myself a writer.
            As well as the same bench I sat on just a few months ago, with my best friend, talking about life and the future.
            Finally, it's the bench I sat alone on, days ago, realizing it's time for me to move on from this place, that Orange County is no longer my home and to say goodbye to the proverbial Yellow Brick Road.
            I've got a plane ticket; I leave Wednesday the 21st at 9 p.m.  That part is easy, it's set in stone.  The hard part will come at the end of the week.  I always enjoy that critical decision of whether or not I'll take that bus home.  Because I always understand that I may never find myself in the same situation in which I would want to go back.  Right now I know it's a place that makes me absolutely happy, and aside from the immediate ability to finish my education, I know that that is a small sacrifice in order to find what I truly love in life.
            I find it ironic, or hypocritical, that less than a year ago I gave a speech to a class of mine on how one should not make an emotionally based decision.  How rationality, and an economically informed choice, would always be the best route.  I guess that was before I ever knew what this feeling I'm going through was.  Anyone, or any place that can make me feel this; surely will lead to what I would consider a successful life.
            My only fear is that if I wait too long, just by natural human conditioning, my ambition will dry out, and I will find myself alone (Though, I'll admit, Annie has always been there for me) and lost in Orange County.
           I know that whatever I decide to do it will work out, in terms of what it has at the end of the road.  I guess the question comes down to whether or not I want stability, or if I want to leave that road behind, and reach for that 1 in a million spot of extreme success, both financially and emotionally.
            I've taken the bus twice; maybe the third time I'm standing there, I'll fully realize that all I ever need to know is in a little spot in Northern California, 400 miles away from any sort of planned path.