Today marks day 21 of my living in SoCal. Damn, that still feels really weird to say. Alas, here we are. I have loved every minute of being here so far. That isn’t to say there haven’t been road bumps in the transition. There have been a few, to be honest. My new job has been more difficult than I had initially assumed. My relationship with my girlfriend has been strained for the first time since we started seeing each other. Everything seems insanely expensive here (a gallon of gas at Costco here is $5.79. In Fort Wayne, it is $4.54). Not to mention driving in general here is like trying to travel on a different planet entirely.
Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed by the gravity of a move like the one I just made. I live in an entirely different place; I went from living in a community of 10,000 people to a city with a population of 1.3 million. It feels crazy sometimes.
But then I try to change my perspective and realize how blessed I am to even be in a situation like this. The support system I have around me is fantastic. I have awesome parents who have been an enormous help to me in the transitional period. My girlfriend has been a rock for me, and her parents have also been incredibly beneficial. The job that I have and the company I work for are incredible. My flexible schedule allows me to work when I can and still make enough money to support us comfortably. I am surrounded by love and support. This makes me feel so grateful and like I can achieve anything I set my mind to.
Living here feels like paradise; It is sunny and picture-perfect weather every day; I live 11 miles away from the beach, and there are palm trees EVERYWHERE. The apartment complex I live in makes it seem like I wake up in a resort every day. Life feels pretty good here. My only worry is that my surroundings may make me feel complacent. I haven’t accomplished anything yet, and I am still far from achieving any of my lifelong goals. Learning how to manifest that hunger and drive is a challenge but one I will embrace with open arms.
My lifestyle has been relatively similar since I moved here from Ohio. I exercise similarly, although I fell off the bandwagon before/during the move. But since we’ve settled in, I’ve been exercising almost daily. I have hit personal records for my mile time and three-mile time, seemingly out of nowhere. We have a gym right here in our apartment complex, so there is absolutely no excuse to not work out on any given day.
I have been waking up earlier than ever before since we moved in. The first morning in our new apartment, I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep. That morning I couldn’t fall asleep due to sheer excitement to finally be here, but now I have settled in for a 6:00 am wake time every day, in which I typically hydrate, exercise, then come home, and journal, read, and meditate. I haven’t been as consistent with the routine as I’d like, but I will iron that out.
All in all, life has been pretty amazing these past few weeks. I feel like I’m living a dream, and if I feel that way every day, something must be going right.
Footy Foster 