We'll All Have Our Bright Shiny Morning

What are we doing?
We're leaving.
Where are we going?
California.
We can't just get up and go to California.
Yes, we can.
We can't just walk away from our lives.
We don't have lives here. We're just stuck. We'll end up like everyone else, drunk and mean and miserable.
What'll we do?
Figure it out.
We're just gonna leave and go to California and figure it out?
Yeah, that's what we're gonna do.

--James Frey, excerpted from Bright Shiny Morning.

The above was, literally, the first thing that caught my eye when skimming through a copy of Bright Shiny Morning today. I was spending time with a friend, beginning the bittersweet process of saying my goodbyes, and she suggested that I add this to my reading list, as Los Angeles and her history are central characters. To say that it resonated would be, of course, something of an understatement. While the motivations for my own journey are far less dark, and much more an adventure and an exploration of myself than a mere running away, the end result is that yes, I am going to California to "figure it out".

Packing is almost complete, departure dates have been set, and there is an almost electric excitement about me. Often I have found myself critical of my reluctance to have adventures (though in truth, I've had my fair share), so perhaps this is also something of a test. There is something that I want, and have felt that I've needed for some time, and here it is, a door that merely needs to be walked through. Perhaps it's the ease with which everything fell together that leaves me a little nervous, but in truth, isn't serendipity to be celebrated?

Right now, with so much uncertainty in the world, let's focus on the beauty and the wonder of possibility; a belief that, in the end, everything really can be wonderful. Let's suspend for a moment, if we can, the concept of chance. Instead, let's believe, if only for just now, that everything is a puzzle, a gift to be used to our advantage in making us the people that we want to be. It's not that things are hard, it's that they're blessedly easy, if only we can step back and marvel at yes, the beauty and wonder of it all.