California Plan

I've been on a lot of vacations. I've had the great fortune of traveling and seeing lots of really great places. Mexico. Paris. Vancouver. Yellowstone. Boston. The Grand Canyon. Disneyworld...  and I've always thought to myself, oh, this is a nice place. I'm glad I came here. Wouldn't it be cool to live here? And then I go home and part of me is glad to be home with my friends and family and familiarity. I put my photos on a disk or print them out and put them in frames and dream of going back to visit.

This place, however. This place is different. I had a California plan in place this time last year. I almost took it to completion this past summer (remember me moving out of my apartment and selling practically everything I owned? Remember me moving in with James "temporarily" until I got my transfer out West?)

This trip has solidified everything I thought was true, everything I knew deep down inside about myself and everything I've been pushing aside for YEARS out of fear.

I belong here. In this place. In this part of the world. These are my people. This is my space. My air. My water. My waves. My sand. My sun. My breath. My life. It does not feel like vacation. It feels like coming home. It feels like waking up at 7am and drinking coffee and reading scripture and going for a run before my day starts. It feels like I know the lady behind the counter at the coffee shop because she deep down inside, knows me. That man handing me the soft corn taco? He is my brother. The girl with the wet suit and the board who follows me down to the beach is my sister. The guy in the VW Bus up ahead with the peace sign sticker, he is my father and my uncle and my best friend's grandpa.

I was so worried about making new friends. How silly. You know how many new friends I've made in the past 6 months alone?
I was worried about getting plugged into a church. That's laughable. Some of my most dear friends now I met at a church I started 4 months ago.
I was worried about fitting in at a new Target. Done and done.

God has taken me through every one of my fears right there in good old Kansas and I have triumphed them all. There is nothing to fear. Nothing to hold me back. The cold, dark winter will be there when I get back to KS but it doesn't have to be there for me forever.

But California is so expensive. You don't know anyone out there. People are mean. The traffic sucks.

Maybe so. But I'm not letting fear and doubt get in my way anymore. This is what I declare! 2014 will be the year I get my life back on track, straightened out, debt free and focused. I don't fully know what waits for me on the other side of this wall, but I do know it will be free and beautiful and where I belong. I'm pushing forward with my life and my California Plan is back on track. Man, this decision has never felt so right.