California isn't all warm

I have been in the Bay area of California for the past couple of days and I must say that I am enjoying myself. Leaving Colorado on Friday was difficult, but I got excited as soon as I saw the bay and the Golden Gate bridge. I must preface this blog before I continue; I love my family very much. Now, on with the blog.

Saturday was my cousin Paul's wedding and he got married to someone who seems like a great fit and decent person. I don't know her, but from what the rest of my cousins have said, she's good. So I will believe them. It's been good to see family I haven't seen in probably 15 years. Yes, some of my cousins I haven't seen since they were little. I kind of wish that I would have been able to grow up with them as every time I'm around them, we always get along. There is something about being family that just gives you an instant connection. I like it. My "normal" family on the other hand... well I love them. Suffice it to say, I think this will be my last family vacation for a bit. There comes a point where you really just want to develop your own life. Not break ties, but I want to go travel and be off on my own. Or with my girlfriend. Both sound equally appealing (with the latter shining a little brighter). Anyway, I've come to realize that the idea of sunny warm California only applies to Southern California. Northern California is windy, cool (still sunny) and very beautiful. There are times where I get a good view of the surroundings and I think to pictures of the Mediterranean Sea. I am finding myself falling in severe like with the topography.

My thoughts still fall though with the rest of the summer. I am gone from my home at this point until August 14th and as hard as I try I can not get excited about it. Perhaps when it all happens and I am there, my attitude will change. I hope so, I really do. It's going to be an experience that's for sure. My thoughts haven't changed since my last blog so read below if you want.

This time between 9 and 11 is my only personal time. I need this private time. If for nothing else to de-compress. To spend it how I will. To call up that cute girl living three states away, to think, to walk. To listen to silent (or in this case not so silent) wind. Yes, I quote King's X often. I will now bid adieu as I go to sit outside, look at the black sky, and feel the salt breeze kiss my sense of smell.

Summer

Last week was, rightly so, a week from hell. Little sleep, playing severe catch up (I wrote somewhere around 25-30 pages in a weeks time) and then... preparing to head to St. Louis for the summer. I got a call on Monday morning from an organization called Youthworks. If you want more information (as I don't feel like typing it all out here), go to www.youtworks.com. A phone interview was set up for Tues. morning and as long as it was it went well. So well in fact, they offered me a job on Thursday as a part of their Urban Site staff in St. Louis, MO. I took the position and now, with traveling to San Francisco at the end of this week and then Seattle six days later and after that Minneapolis to train and then finally St. Louis, means that I am gone from Colorado for the entire summer. It's a strange thing to think about being gone for the whole summer. I find myself not as excited about it as I should be. In fact, I'm pretty down about it. While the position with Youthworks will provide me with a job, a chance to serve and help people, and a chance to travel (all things I want to do) I can't quite wrap my head around the idea that I am leaving many things I love for a solid three months. I'm leaving my band, my kitten, a chance to see friends that I only get to see once or twice a year and most importantly, I'm leaving my girlfriend. Some of you may be saying, "Ah, poor you," in as sarcastic of a tone as you can muster and you'd be justified in that. I know this is the opportunity of a lifetime and chances are I may not get this kind of opportunity for awhile. Still, I had come in recent weeks to enjoy my place in life again. I was a little stressed and down for a bit (mostly because of school and the band not going anywhere) but I pulled myself out of it, school is done and the band is going places again (as we are opening for Drowning Pool on Wed. night). While these things were certainly external factors, there was something internal that I could quite get as to why I was in my feeling low state. Still can't, but it was passing and I know a good deal of that was conscious. I was getting excited to look for a job, work, hang out in Greeley (I've spent the past three years traveling from Greeley to Colorado Springs every summer and I was looking forward to staying put for once), and now I have to get myself jazzed up to work with high school and middle school kids. It will be good, I'm sure, but it is strange to me to see how I've changed. A year ago, I would have killed to be in this position. To be going on an adventure and seeing new people and places... it would have been my dream. Perhaps I need to reconnect with that part of me in order to get in the right mindset.

Stability. I find that even when I think I've found stability in something, it isn't there. I'm not going to air any dirty laundry there as the company involved still doesn't know how I feel (and to speak it via blog is heartless disrespectful). I will say this; a year ago I thought I had found my ideal. Now a year later, it comes up painfully short. For those of you wondering, no this is not about my girlfriend. She's still everything awesome that I thought she was when we started dating. Just to clear that up. I guess my life is going to have an air of instability to it for a bit longer. Perhaps this is good. I will be far outside my comfort zone in St. Louis and perhaps it will motivate me to draw closer to God. That is my hope and prayer. I am coming from something of a cynical mindset and while I've never thought that a certain amount of cynicism is bad, it can get stifling. The unknown is where I am headed until August 14th. It is in the unknown and unfamiliar that I am being thrust and for what reason I am not yet sure.