Life Is A Journey

So it's a quarter to 5 in the morning & I'm awake in New Orleans. I was asleep for a while, but woke up at 2 AM after the alcohol I consumed at Jazzfest & Shellfest (yes, they even have a festival for the Shell gas station here in NO) wore off. After watching Charlie's Angels with Don Carlos, he decided to go to bed and turned the light off in the living room. It didn't iritate me as much as it might have a while back (typical SJA behavior...he assumed I wanted to go to sleep as well) but I guess that's because I came down here with two goals and one understanding:

1. No drama
2. No expectations
3. He's an SJA

I've gone through this trip so far with the heavy things between us having been said (i.e. "I don't want to marry you," knowing that he's not going to change his selfish ways) and knowing that things are going to be just as they should be...whether I worry about them or not. The universe reiterated this to me when I met up with my friends at Jazzfest and ran into an old fling.

He & I had a tryst in New Zealand in 2004 while there for the wedding of a friend of mine from college (my "boyfriend" from college) I didn't realize I'd dated for 9 months before he met the woman who's now his wife. My NZ tryst confided in me about the issues he's been having with his wife and started reminiscing on the fact that we never actually dated. He was telling me that he didn't understand why we just had a few nights together and didn't attempt an actual relationship. I told him that it didn't matter now because everything worked out exactly as it should and for the best. He was having a moment and I didn't allow myself to get sucked into anything more than 5 minutes ago nor how they could've been if I'd been as aware of myself then as I am now.

As I listen to New Orleans' style blues on WWOZ at this early (or late) hour of a Sunday morning in May, I'm reminded of all the good & bad times I had here, the tone that the city conveys, and the statement my Match.com phone friend recently made about my state of mind when I told him I was coming down here, "You're in transition."

I am in transition. The trip to Scotland clarified for me in my own mind what I'd struggled with for years after Don Carlos asked me if I would marry him back in '99, "No, I wouldn't marry you," because I didn't think he wanted the whole package that is me. I am a potential partner and a mother, but he didn't seem to want the mother part as he didn't seem interested in being a step-father to my then 4 year old son. While in Scotland I finally realized that I want to be mated as "I was born a housecat" (thank you John Mayer for those ever so descriptive words from "Home Life"...he was great at Jazzfest, by the way). And this trip here has confirmed that although I was once a party girl (and the party girl will always live inside of me), I'm ready to move into the next phase of my life.

So far, it's been a good visit to New Orleans. I got a chance to see some old friends, enjoyed good music & good food, and have had a non-dramatic visit with an old lover. I'm ready to put the past behind me knowing that although the road I've taken to get here isn't what I would've mapped out for myself 9 years ago when I originally planned to move here. I understand that things are the way they are because that's how they needed to be for me (and everyone I've come in contact with along the way) to become who I am. I find peace in knowing that up 'til now, my journey may have been a circuitous & dramatic roller coaster ride with detours I could've never imagined, but it's been exactly as it needed to be for me to get here. This trip has just confirmed for me that life is about the journey, not the destination.