Pacifica

After commuting from Reno to San Francisco for six months straight and spending countless hours on the phone every night lamenting the miles between us, Rebecca and I decided to get a house of our own in the Bay Area. Pacifica was the perfect getaway no roommate, no traffic (the 'J' train rumbled through her apartment in the city about every ten seconds) and most important of all.... no more commuting for me!

The house was a quaint little getaway on a mountainside overlooking the ocean. Three bedrooms, one bath and a garage! (Any one who has ever visited San Francisco will have an immediate understanding of the importance of parking) The most striking of this little house's appointments was the huge ocean facing picture window in the living room.180 degrees of pristine pacific greeted you the moment you entered the room, an awesome sight that I will never tire of viewing. I would sit at the kitchen table for hours working or writing my innermost thoughts with that view as my inspiration

It was a great little town filled with a variety of interesting places and people. From 'the guys' at the best deli around, to the incredible fire trails along the mountainside that are tailor made for hiking or mountain biking, any direction I turned I found exactly what I had desired. Rebecca and I had achieved the perfect situation, one that matched all of our needs at that moment. We had a beautiful house overlooking the ocean that afforded us the opportunity of quiet hours of introspect. It gave us a place to slow down and look at life from the bystander's vantage. We lay on our comfortable couch looking out over the ocean, and talked for hours about.... everything. From the meaning of life to Pokemon (one in the same for some) we laughed, and contemplate our world and lives

It was a wonderful place that gave us the solitude to realize some of the key ingredients of life. We discovered that our lives were truly what we made of them. Through our perspective, we color our existence. The things we decided were bad became bad through our own choice. The things that we enjoyed were enjoyable because that was the way we made them. Looking back over our lives we found that there were no circumstances that could not have been perceived in a different light, a different color if you will. It is all a matter of choice, who you want to be in response to the situation.

My brother Michael once told me of a man who he'd met who he thought might be happiest person he'd ever encountered. Mike had asked him if he had always been so happy and energetic. Upon discovering this was a relatively new phenomenon for him and not the recessive 'happy' gene mike asked how the man could be so consistently happy. He told Mike of a tortured life filled depression and mood swings that left him reeling on a daily basis. Then one day he just made up his mind to be happy. The man looked in the mirror and realized that nothing could make him happy or unhappy but himself. No circumstance was inherently good or bad; it was just the way he'd chosen to look at it.

When I heard that story, it made a lot of sense. I started to look at the situations and circumstances in my life in a much different manner. I found that the occurrence in my life I thought were making me happy, were just as debilitating as the ones I had accredited with my unhappiness. In fact, I may have actually allowed them more control over me, as I believed that I would surely be unhappy without all these conditions that ‘make me happy’. Well, with this realization I decided to find out just how deep the rabbit hole went. I decided to find out how much of myself I had allowed to be constructed of people, places or things for which I had created value judgments.

This is how the journey unfolded in my mind. I want to take myself out of the habitat that I was accustomed to in order to get some real perspective on life. I want to see and experience the different cultures and lifestyles in all their glorious diversity. I want to choose to be happy and content in any circumstance so I can gain the insight, the understanding of my true dreams and goals in life... not those comfortable imposters that I have succumbed to in the past.

This is a world filled with different perspectives that I have always known I wanted to explore, I just never knew why. Now I realize that life, for me, is about fostering a deeper understanding of myself, the way I interact with those around me in the situations that arise. I have chosen to look to me for the answers and accept the 'blame' I would so freely dole out in the past.

So I thanked Pacifica for all of the wonderful moments and beautiful insights. I thanked her for the long walks on the beach, the cool contemplative fog and the invigorating mountains. I counted myself blessed for those experiences and accept that whatever I choose to make of the situations that will come, Pacifica will remain, in my memory, a divine haven for my soul.