While the World Sleeps

I like going to the beach in the middle of the night. I’m most alive during that brief but beautiful interval of time after the insomniac stoners stomp out their dying blunts and before the yogaphiles invade the morning shores in colorful spandex like Teletubbie conquistadors. While the world sleeps, I sneak out to the coast. I carve myself a little piece of real estate in the sand, shaking and shimming until I’m burrowed three or four inches deep. Sure, it’s no $2500 Tempur-Pedic but I don’t go for the r&r. My purposes don’t allow it.

 

After dark, the horizon disappears. The ocean appears infinite and expressionless. It’s a mystifying scene that fills the ocular orbs with a singular sense of wonder and a feeling that there is somewhere, somehow, someone, something, someway, that there are possibilities, that there is hope.

 

The moon drops the temp and pumps up the humidity. It’s a moisture infused cocktail that wreaks havoc on any gal’s hairdo, but in my estimation, does wonders for the respiratory system…

 

…and so I breathe in the sweet and salty brew and think. Nothing more, nothing less.

Lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my future. I have less than a year and a half left in college, at which point, I’ll no longer be a student, but an unemployed twentysomething. I’ll miss school. I’ve been a student for the better part of my life and it’s given my days a sort of rhythm that will be strange to live without.

 

What I’m most afraid of is becoming stuck, stuck in a life I didn’t intend on leading. The world pressures us to make compromises. One concession leads to the next, and before we know it, we are living lives that are not ours. I have already made several such settlements. I  rationalize each with a familiar excuse: “I am looking out for my future.”  In retrospect, I wonder if looking ahead has caused me to sacrifice the present.  

 

Was it the right move to leave my friends and family back East and pursue an education in Los Angeles? Was it the best decision to put music and mechanics, two fields I love but I’m told are for “delinquents,” on the back burners and focus almost exclusively on my studies?

 

I try not to dwell on the past but I think there is something to gained from revisiting our previous missteps and miscalculations.  Growth is moving forward with a sense of what’s behind you.

 

I can’t help but think how every hour I spend studying the nuances of Gothic literature could be better spent laughing with those I love. Many of us live our lives in constant preparation for the future. We do well in school so that we can go to a good college; we study hard in college so that we can get a good job; we work hard at our job so that we can get a better job that pays more and comes with medical AND dental benefits; we save our money so that we can live comfortably in our retirement; and then we arrive at old age with a fat bank account and realize we sacrificed too much for the paycheck. We exit the carnival with a 6-foot stuffed animal but without as many memories of cotton candy or roller coaster rides as we originally hoped for.

 

I am not advocating an abdication of all responsibility, just a reprioritization. 

 

Because when it’s all said and done, you won’t look back and reminisce on the grade you received in chemistry or the numbers printed on the Christmas bonus; instead, you’ll look back on the smiles of those who made you the happiest and the moments you shared with them.

 

When I’m old, I hope to go to the beach on a warm July night, scoop mashed peas into my mouth, look out into the big empty and say to myself: “Man, what a ride.”

 

~Ian M. Johnson