I always knew I would move back to Texas and not just because I made a promise or said I would.
I knew because I left a piece of my heart here and it made sense that one day I’d have to go get it.
Never thought it would take as long as it did to get back or that so many things would happen.
But that is the thing about life it doesn’t take your plans into account nor does it consider whether the things it throws at you are going to have a positive or negative influence.
It just puts you and them in place and says deal or don’t deal.
A Different Sort Of Long & Winding Road
My daughter asked me to tell her when and how this happened and I laughed because there is no time or date.
Ask me when I fell in love with Jerusalem and I can tell you I was 16 and that every trip back has reinforced this, but I don’t have the same sort of definitive trip for Texas.
I know that my first trip to Dallas in ’92 made an impression and so did trips to Houston in ’93 and ’95.
I definitely started to think of it as a potential place to live but I don’t know if I can provide more specifics than that or if it matters.
What I know is when I left in 2013 the plan was to go back to LA and move back during the summer of 2014.
But life doesn’t care what about our plans.
Cue Golden Slumbers.
“Boy, you gotta carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
Boy, you gotta carry that weight
You’re gonna carry that weight along time”
I won’t lie and say I never asked life why it felt like it had chosen to kick me because I probably did.
And then I probably screamed at it.
Side note, my mom likes to talk about how when I was little if I got potched for misbehaving I’d look at them and say, “I take this potch and I throw it away.”
Or maybe I should share the story about how I got in trouble when I was five and got sent to my room. I suggested as an alternative to being stuck in my room I suggested my dad and I fight.
Why?
Because that little boy believed he could win and that if he won he wouldn’t be stuck in his room.
Cue The Beatles singing The End
And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make
You May Be A Lover
I rarely outline posts and more often than not whatever I am listening to influences how and what I share here.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Helter Skelter has me saying I may be a lover but I am not a dancer.
It is pretty accurate because those I care about probably recognize I am not the guy who tap dances his way around stuff.
I just lumber forward and keep moving until I can’t move any more and then I find a way to keep coming or going.
That is a lesson I have tried hard to pass along to my children, to not let walls stop us from doing what we have to do.
It is why during a recent conversation with my teenager I said I am not interested in hearing can’t.
Tell me you can’t fly and I’ll nod my head and ask what your alternative is but say you can’t do something I know you can do and I’ll shake my head.
I want to reframe the conversation so that it is not can’t in the sense of never but can’t as in not now.
That is acceptable, the other is not.
But I often find myself trying to figure out how hard to push that line with them because I want them to live up to their potential but I don’t want them to feel crazed by the push either.
They don’t have to clones of me and do exactly as I do or as I would.
Sometimes this parenting thing is really, really, really hard.
When Opportunity Knocks
A buddy of mine told me he thought it was silly that I was certain I was going back.
I told him if opportunity knocked and I ended up somewhere else clearly I would know that it wasn’t meant to be.
“Nothing is meant to be, things just happen.”
“You might be right but you never know what is going to click and what is not.”
“Dude, that is gibberish.”
“So are the lyrics to Come Together and people sing it all the time. Things happen.”
Ultimately I don’t need to know if it was coincidence or fate that landed me here again because it doesn’t matter.
Sometimes you just have to roll with what happens and let it be.
I have plenty of other places to focus my energy and my curiosity. I only wish I had more time.
