Back Home Again

Back from California and I have to confess, it was not the greatest vacation of all time the way I had expected it to be.  I've always said I want to live in California, and I figured this visit would confirm that desire.  It didn't, at all.  California has just always seemed cooler and hipper, healthier, richer, more artsy and creative.  Or maybe I picked California as my dream world because it's the farthest I can get away from my real life on the East Coast.

It was a wonderful trip and we had a fantastic time together, but it just didn't blow my socks off like I thought it would.  This was my third visit to the West Coast, all of them with J, and maybe an entire week out there was just too much.  We did a lot, visited LA and San Diego, the mountains and the beaches.  Did the tourist traps, shopping, eating, driving, casinos, museums, sitting and staring at the water.  The rest of it was just wearing ourselves out and rushing around in traffic trying to get from one place to another, much like we do at home.

The relaxing at the beach was probably the highlight for both of us.  Maybe it's just me, I was born on the Gulf Shores on a beach town, and lived there until I was 30. Life on the shores is just in my blood.  J loves it too, although he was raised on a working farm closer to mountains than water.  It's his desire to retire to the beach, and he always tells me he's "not" on vacation yet until he sees the water.

While we were there I realized that, no matter where you are, it's all the same. Really.  I had expected this trip to California to enlighten me and lift my spirits, when in reality I saw the same things out there as I do at home- lines in the fast food drive-thru, Wal-Mart, crazy drivers on the interstate, stray animals, trash blowing down streets, people texting while they walk down the sidewalks, run down neighborhoods.  The same TV shows, the same stores, the same chain restaurants. I saw a lot of natural beauty out there, plants and birds we don't have back on the East Coast.  Yet the sameness outweighed the differences.  In fact, the photo on this post was taken in California, the photo under my "About Me" title was taken in my home town in Florida.  Not much difference is there?

Not long ago, someone asked me what my perfect life would be.  I said, spending my days strolling along the beach, doing yoga, walking around the farmers market, making pottery or painting in my home studio, relaxing on a back deck reading a paperback.  In California.  Yes, I really said I felt like I needed to be in California to live that perfect laid back lifestyle I had envisioned.  But the truth is, I can do all of that anywhere.  Well, maybe not the beach part, where I live now I'm hours and hours away from the nearest sandy shoreline.  But the rest of it, I can do right here, right now.  Yet I don't, and why is that?

If I lived in California, I would still have to go to work every day, I'd still have to do laundry and pull weeds in my garden, I'd still have to vacuum and mop and clean litter boxes, I'd still drink too much caffeine and eat too many carbs.  Living in California- or anywhere else- would not automatically make me eat right and exercise, or finish writing my novel, or be a better person and wife.  I'd still be fat and old and tired and grumpy, and more than likely, still depressed and negative.

Yes I work full time, but that is really no excuse.  When it comes to my life away from the office, I am such a poor time manager, and my days and weeks slip by without me accomplishing a single thing on my "to do" lists.  I have a back deck here- it faces the woods and not the ocean, but I can relax out there in the evenings with a good book.  And I have a home studio already, the bonus room upstairs that J has allowed me to take over with all my paints and glazes and stamps and fabrics, why am I not up there right now creating something for my Etsy shop, which is empty?  We have plenty of farmers markets right here, maybe not as cool as the big one in LA we went to, but I'm not even taking advantage of the ones in my own town now.  And yoga?  I have a mat, stretch pants, and a DVD player- but am I doing my sun salutations every day?  No.

So I came to the realization that, even if I lived in California, I would still be the same me.  If I'm not living my life right now to the fullest today, this week, this year- what difference would the change of scenery make?  It's ME that has to change, not the state I live in.

MISS GEE