Week One: Done

I'm pretty sure I wrote another post with this exact same title some time ago. It's a recurring theme anyway, as so many things in life are. The first week of school is finally done. We're off and running, so to speak. And here we are with a 3-day weekend to unwind and decompress. I'm going to take a trip to San Francisco tomorrow before getting Connor back on Sunday.

A good friend asked me yesterday why I go to San Francisco. I'm not entirely sure that she's aware of how often I make this trip in the course of a year. I suppose I like that it's fairly close and has lots to see and do, things appropriate for whatever mood I find myself in. Really though, when I pass over that last crest of a hill and I see the ocean coming into view for the first time, an immense calm comes over me. It's as if the waves themselves are washing over my soul, pulling away the loose sand and debris that has clogged it. It's like I've come home.

In a word: serenity. That's why I go.

Over the last 24 hours I've subjected myself to waves of a different kind: nostalgia. I've been going through my file cabinet in the folder where I've kept personal treasures for years and years. Mostly cards and letters from times gone by. It's amazing how much we forget over the years. The people who touched our lives and affected us in our youth. Those who pulled us along when we needed a tether to keep us on our path. There was even a couple of letters from people that, honestly I can't yet remember who they are. I stare at their name on the page and concentrate as hard as I can. But they've been completely washed from memory.

But that's not true of most of my treasures. There were some people I was very close to, who meant the world to me and yet I drifted apart from them over the years. Like a small dinghy hopelessly lost, further and further out to sea. Maybe that's why the ocean calls to me now. Maybe it wants me to keep an eye out for this little ship to finally drift back home. So the world will be right again.

I can't really say that I have any regrets in life. I believe that the only way a person can truly have regrets is if they aren't happy with where they've ended up in life. And I'm not prepared to admit that. Things aren't perfect, sure. Things need work, sure. I'm not finished, not by a long shot. But I'm content with who I've become, with who I am at this instant.

And yet, I cannot help but look back on potential missed opportunities and wonder: what might have been. It's silly, I know. One cannot change the past. But perhaps the present and future will change now, as I've relived through some past memories - GOOD memories - long forgotten that now bob incessantly on the surface of my consciousness.

Life is funny. The first week of the first semester of my 21st year at Sac State is done. Tomorrow I will take a good, hard, long look across the sea. I wonder what I'll see.