So the big question of my life, the one many people ask me and the one I ask myself, is not, "why am I still a cook?" or, "how can I live with so little sleep?" but, "Why am I not in San Diego with the girl I profess to love and with whom I want to spend the rest of my life?" There are multiple answers to this question, all of which are true and correct on some level or to some degree.

The easiest answer, for me to say and defend, is that if I lived in San Diego, Grace and I would likely be living together. And that's something that, desirable as it may be, I'm not ready for, and our relationship is not ready for. Too many of my friends have ruined relationships by taking steps that were not right for them to make, like living together especially. It's hard for me to feel ready for marriage and the steps that lead up to it when I have so many friends that are divorced. I am not shying away from committment; I am trying to avoid making committments that I will be unable to keep (and I wasn't sure it was so until just now when I worded it that way). I love you, bro, but good luck; I'll pray for you and your upcoming marriage.

The simplest answer, for which I have very little ability to defend and generally state as a truth and not an argument, is that I am still trying to figure out who I am, and if I moved to San Diego, I'd be in a situation that allowed for little self-discovery (or so I feel). Here, I have the ability to actualize many of my desires, and so in the process of making decisions, good or bad, I actualize myself, learning what I want in myself and what I need to change in myself. The argument against this is, "hello, David! You're making the Choice of not moving to San Diego. Isn't that a big actualizing choice?" The answer to that is yes, it is. And yet I feel that there are other choices to be made that necessitate this one now. I can't explain it more than to say that I feel as though I need to be here now, that my path, and the choices along that path that will be formative to me in the most important ways, are centered, for now, in Houston.

I hang on to my relationship with Grace because I want that relationship. It is my choice to hold on, and means a lot to me. Dumping Grace would be, to me, the equivalent of giving up on myself, staining my sense of honor and loyalty. Let her go if she wanted to go, I could painfully but graciously do, because she has to live her life too (I'm not so sick of mind that I cannot admit a future without her), but I don't want to. She's one of the most beautiful people I have ever known, and as a peasant stands straighter in the presence of royalty, so too do I know virtue in myself because she deserves it. So few can I attribute that.

The complex answer, then, I suppose you wish to hear? Of course, dear reader. I pander to the lowest and posture before the great. May you find pleasure in reading this, though you care about me little or naught. I don't know how. Confounding, isn't it? People ask me, "Why don't you move to San Diego?" and I want to ask them, "How?" and if I do, they give unsatisfactory answers such as, "Just take your stuff and go," or, "Buy a one-way ticket, then you're stuck and you have to make the best of it." But I don't understand how this is done. I look at my friends such as Charles, whose family was forced to move because they went bankrupt as farmers and needed to start a new life with a new family-supporting career, and Drew, whose family was just never one to settle down anywhere for any long period of time. There was a girl I spoke with in the post office one day, who had just moved here from New Jersey, taking a road trip until she decided to stop and get a job. Lara just went to Spain, living in a bank for two weeks when she was kicked out of her host house. Both Irina and Raph, with med school and military respectively ahead of them, had to figure out where to live and how to get there and how to get around, because they had responsibilities that were not going to wait for them. Kat and Grace both just up and moved out of state to stay with fiancé and best friend respectively, with the roughest of plans, just making sure a roof would be overhead with a bed to sleep in, trying to figure out the rest upon arrival.

I don't know how to do that. Sure, I went to college a thousand miles away and kept in contact with home very little. But did I mention that I lived in dorms all 4 years, that housing and food were part of tuition, that my "work grant" was money straight into my pocket that wasn't already promised for rent, water, food, electricity, car payment, phone payment, anything except my normal credit card payment? If I up and went to San Diego, right now with no car of my own, no phone of my own, no place to live, credit card bills and student loans, no concept of "money-already-spent-before-it-was-earned", it would be like putting on pads and a helmet and walking out onto a football field, not knowing the rules, looking at the guy beside me and imitating his stance, trying to figure out what's going on. I can't take all those steps all at once, so I need to work on them a couple at a time, slowly ease my way into it, get up to speed. That or get walked through the process by a close friend, and who can do that, I mean really? I have friends that are remarkably well-off right now, have their feet under them and a goal ahead of them they're driving straight toward, but that's not something I could ask of anyone, even if I were in the position to do so.

And here's where the complex part comes in. Remember how I'm being formative right now? Every choice denies other choices? Well, I'm busy right now choosing to focus on other things. I have been for a good long time. I won't be for much longer, because I can't afford to for much longer. My parents are wonderful, and I couldn't ask for more love or a better upbringing, but they don't deserve for me to take advantage of their generosity like this. I have momentum in the direction I've chosen; I can feel the stagnation of my economic maturation, but my spiritual maturation is plowing onward, making progress almost every day. That part of myself that I have always deemed most important is determining itself through joy and depression, admiration and contempt, pain and resolve. It is hard to feel, harder still to see, but it is there and it is growing strong, has grown strong. I do not wallow in a pit of formlessness, uncertain of what I want, who I am, what things must happen for me to get there. The only uncertainty standing before me is how to go about doing all this. Advise, advise, advise, I have much of it from many people I respect, most of it good advise, but it isn't getting through to me, it isn't penetrating me and making me dance, like the music to which I am learning to feel in ways I thought I never would. I don't know how, blogger. Waiting isn't the answer. I didn't learn to let the music move me by staying home; I learned by going out all the time until I found the music that reached me. I need to do the same for this, but how? What is the equivalent?

So, that is where I am. I'm glad you read through this whole blog, because it was actually informative to me, as well. Sometimes you don't realize something until you've put it into words, and such was the case here. Having said all that, I have more to think about. Also, if you'd like, I never know who reads my blog, and I'd appreciate if you would drop me a line at ashe.david@gmail.com to give me comments or just to say you read it. Not that it really matters, but I want to believe my friends care enough to read my blog, since this reveals more of myself than I ever really do in person. and though I think it's impossible most of the time, I'd like more than anything in the world to be understood. It closely beats lovingly-sliced bell peppers on which to snack. Barely.