Life, Be a Dream

Is it just a dream that life can be a dream?

I was thinking this exact thought, driving through Topanga Canyon. Today I had the privilege of experiencing one of those days that remind you that you are alive, and even why you are.

And in the very next moment, just as Mr. International now says “and then you wake up!” as I tell him stories about what I expect from life, the song switched from “Cheri Cheri Lady” to “Money Money Money!”

I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay
Ain't it sad?
And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me
That's too bad
In my dreams I have a plan
I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool around and have a ball

And I almost let the reminder, the recent reality that money makes the world go round, and money doesn't care whether you're chained to a desk to get it or actually living your dream life, steal my Life Could Be A Dream thunder.

Lately, I've been questioning my place in the world. Literally my place within it.

Barcelona has not just remained a peak point in my life; it is the first safe thought my mind goes to when it doesn't understand why I have to be here now. It's the perfect remedy for an inability to be present, whispering all this goes away in your perfect paradise. And while it certainly feels like the fullest, most magical incarnation of my life resides in that city, I am no longer standing for it to steal my appreciation for my current coordinates.

The radical acceptance of it all is that no amount of thinking and yearning for Barcelona will teleport me there or illuminate the path back. It will only shadow the only guaranteed mission before me: what happens in this very moment.

So this week I reunited with light travelers in the form of my three best friends. Two from my childhood who have been back and forth between Europe, and one whom I met in Barcelona, and is on her way back there.

And they illuminated something. Love doesn't track in-person visits. It lives in what we can't see all the time: the moments when, regardless of how many times someone or something appears, you still choose to think of it. This week showed me that even though I haven't physically engaged with these three beautiful souls in a whole year, we emotionally kept up with each other. We restarted on the same page we left on.

Love isn't a book you can read linearly, from start to finish. It's a singular page in a larger story that you choose to stay on with carefully chosen co-authors. The words on the page will change. The chapter might shift. But love is the choice to return to the same page again and again, and that’s where the magic lives, even as the story evolves.

And this is the beauty I feel with my friends. They can travel the world, meet endless people and experiences, try new things, make good and bad decisions, do things I wouldn't do, do things I would, and no matter what, when we come home to each other, we are on the same page. The same wavelength. The same essence that tethered us together.

And this is my only explanation for how, with people you haven't seen in over a year, you can end up Shazaming a song without saying anything at the exact same moment. You can say the same thing at the same time. You can continue inside jokes that were born years ago. You can walk into places only playing your favorite songs. You can take them to nothing but closed-down spots on their LA tour and get a text like "even with all the closed doors, there's always stories and memories that we make when we're together, and for that I'm forever grateful."

So, yeah. This whole two-week period of me moving to LA, wavering from out of place to in, far from myself to close, convinced I need to leave to realizing I can stay, culminated in an emo tiki bar (yes, you read that right) and a simple beach day.

Turns out one dip in the ocean, one hour of sitting on the sand, one coffee, one more song, and one new store can remind you that the feeling you're chasing, the lust for life, is just one decision to be present. Work isn't stealing it from you. Your current coordinates aren't. Your running mind isn't. You are.

The secret to happiness later is happiness now. The secret to finding your place is realizing you're always in it. The secret to feeling alive is realizing you're breathing. The secret to tomorrow is living today. The secret to bravery is to know that no matter where you go, if you learn to look for it, there is always evidence you brought yourself to where you needed to be.

So accept it. Life can be a dream because you already dreamt it.

Life could be a dream. Shaboom!