Evolving

 I should make this the first post of this blog. It is amazing how some of us change. We are still the same person inside, but we become wiser. I'm a very different person today than I was 5 years ago. I may have missed California and thought it was more beautiful and had a lot more excitement compared to Tennessee, but it is a good thing I'm not there now. It seems like the environment was corrupting me in a way. I remember being extremely frustrated and depressed after a while because I didn't know what to do with my life and felt like I was getting nowhere. I was also realizing that California was not really living up to its reputation of having earthquakes all the time(at least ones that get everybody's attention). Experts were warning that southern California was overdue for a major earthquake and so I felt compelled to be there. I came there with the dream of successfully warning people before a major earthquake and that getting me somewhere. I dreamed of a life in L.A., but being famous for a different reason other than acting or being in the music industry. My early twenty-something-yr-old self wanted to not have to change or dress the same as everyone else and help people connect more to nature and spirit. That was my bohemian phase. I had gotten into a lot of new age material after high school and so it set the tone.

Before

It couldn't have fit me better with the California Dream. I discovered that I was extremely sensitive to earthquakes and always felt pain and other peculiar sensations before one happened. I lived in Florida and went on my very first trip to California in November 2009. That was where it started. I finally got my wish to live there 3 years later. I was extremely excited and happy to be there but it would not be long before I started to find myself met with what was working against me. I was delusional and stubborn and lacked self-awareness. I did not really want to work and was the type who wanted to play and just wait for something to happen. It took me all that time to grow up. It is also more complicated than it looks. Throughout those 8 years, as a product of a very sheltered upbringing, I did not know how to make decisions for myself, not on a career, not on anything. I would start resigning to the belief that the world is too harsh and unfair for neurodivergents that I sort of gave up. I was tired of looking and dabbling. It was no wonder I could never leave my parents' house. I did have a lot of ideas and was very creative, but I never knew how to make those materialize especially with the fact that I never had the time or money(or confidence). Sometimes it takes something to really break you for you to truly change and grow. At the end of 2020, my Grandmother had a stroke and died on January 4th 2021. We sold our beautiful house in the mountains and moved in with my Grandfather here in TN. It was the hardest thing I ever did. In fact, I handled it very poorly at first, but it eventually built character. 2021 was a very difficult year, but I found a light towards the end. I found a new great adventure to look forward to that made California look like an old amusement park.

This new dream for Japan helped develop me where I have become more sophisticated and mature. I still am growing. I'm not even the same person I was last year. My tastes and style has even changed. I'm evolving right now. I'm not waiting until I get there like I did last time. This time, I see it as a journey in and of itself instead of being unhappy and wondering how and when I will get there or worrying that it isn't coming quick enough.