Synchronicity

Synchronicity is the belief that when apparently coincidental occurrences happen to an individual they are actually the result of that individual’s thoughts and words and actions manifesting in unexpected ways.

Think of it as a diet form of destiny. It’s not that our path is laid out before us and we have no choice but to follow it, but rather that the path we go looking for is the one we are likely to find. I wish I could say that this were a simple equation: that the more thought one put into planning the future the more well-thought-out that person’s future would be. Instead there is always a gap: a delay between where we want to go and how we think we should get there.

For the past few days I have been in California looking for a place to call home in the next few months. It isn’t easy to find places that are available and it isn’t easy to nail one down even when you do find it (I already submitted one application). All day I spent driving up and down the neighborhood streets looking for For Rent signs. All day I spent driving up and down streets waiting to feel that sensation that I would be able to call this  place home, that I would drive down this  street every day for the next year or more.  The more I went looking the more I began to feel as if I were circling a target without knowing what I was aiming for and without knowing that I was missing it by the narrowest of threads.

I think the hardest part is that I don’t have a good sense of what “home” is going to mean when I get out here. I still catch myself sometimes thinking “Am I really doing this? Am I really moving to California? Am I really going to become a Californian?” And a part of me isn’t sure it wants to commit to this- at least not forever and ever. A part of me doesn’t want to stop being a Chicagoan; no matter what my ambitions are or where my career takes me. I think, perhaps, this part of me is holding me back and preventing me from seeing what is right in front of my face.

Tomorrow I will try again because that is the only reason I am here and it is the only thing I know how to do. I feel certain that an answer will present itself and I need only keep my goal in mind in order to make it happen.

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