I can't really remember what really started me on this train of thought today, but I was sitting around with Kaila and I talked about how, just...life is now. And it just really, really hit me. And it scared the shit out of me.

Life is what you make it, right now. People play it safe their entire lives, save up hundreds of thousands for retirement, and then die before they get a chance to use it. Can you imagine how much more living they could have done if they hadn't saved that money?

I can save up money to move to NYC. I can play it safe and stay with the same therapist and DBT group and psychiatrist.
Guess what?
They have DBT groups in NYC. Mount Sinai runs a program that sounds a lot like what they have here, where there's a group of DBT therapists that you pick out of to see once a week, and then there's a group that meets once a week as well.
They have psychiatrists in NYC. Some of the best ones.

I have girls in Jersey willing to put me up. I have girls in Jersey willing to hook me up with girls in NYC who will put me up until I get on my feet.

I know I complain a lot, but I think a good part of it is because I feel I'm not really suffering for any purpose. If I was in New York, I'd be following a dream. I could call myself a starving artist and actually believe it - even if no one else did. I'd live in a tiny-ass apartment, I'd eat crappy food, I'd be cold sometimes. And at times, I would be completely miserable.
But guess what? I'd be in Manhattan. I'd be in New York. I'd have a horrible day and then decide to go walk along Fifth Avenue or look at the cute Jewish girls working in the Diamond District.
I'd be able to walk out my door and, true, it would eventually be like walking out the door anywhere else, but I could always remind myself that I was walking down the streets of my dreams. The streets I've been desperate to get to since I was sixteen. There would be reassurance in that, and in the fact that I was at least feeling miserable in my dream city and not Seattle.

I think that there really was a purpose to me not going to New York. Obviously, I wasn't listening to whatever God was trying to say, so he decided to stick me in a mental hospital to make me listen.
It really does make sense, looking at it. I've gotten help. I've gotten medication. I've well into therapy and DBT.
But perhaps the thing that strikes me the most is I live in Chinatown. Granted, it's not New York, by any means. But it's near downtown. It's dirty, and noisy, and sometimes smelly. Guys hit on you and leer at you. You have to be careful you don't get pickpocketed after dark. If you're even going out after dark, you take a friend, preferably a male. At least on weekday nights.
I used to hate buses. I still don't love them, but I've gotten used to them. No, they're not subways. But honestly, what is a subway but an underground bus? It just doesn't have as much scenery and it never has to deal with stoplights. I'm public transportation-smart. And subways are honestly, in my opinion, easier than buses, at least they look it. If you get lost on a bus route, you can stay lost. On a subway, it's going to go back exactly the way it came, there's only so many tracks. If you get lost, you just get off and take it back until you find a place that looks familiar. And it's not like you're taking a new route everyday. You figure out how to get to friend's houses, how to get to work, how to get to your favorite take-out place (although really, if you're in Manhattan, that shouldn't be further than two blocks from your apartment). And you can use a freakin' trip planner like you do for the buses to figure out where you're going.

My point is, moving straight from suburbia to New York City would have been a culture shock that I probably would not have recovered from, and I would have come running back to Washington. Living in Chinatown is a little bit further than halfway between suburbia and New York City. It's walking in to the middle of the pool and beginning to eye the deep end.

It just scares me, you know? I guess part of it - and this will sound kind of silly - is this dream that Kaylee had. It was one where the world was ending, like Armagedon was happening, and this guy she's been...well, doing something with, was with her, and they started this countdown to the New Year, which is when the world would end, and he made her go to sleep before that and then while it was happening he put his hand over her ear so she wouldn't wake up and hear it. And in the dream, she was 22.
We all do realize that the world is supposed to end on 12/22/12? I know people keep saying it'll end on this date and this date and this date, but this Mayan or Aztec or whatever calender it is, it's been accurate about other stuff, so why not this? I mean, I'm religious, so I think the Messiah will be coming, but it's still like...New York won't be New York after that. And I'm sorry, but honestly, how is the Messiah going to beat Manhattan? If you take all of the bad stuff out of Manhattan it's not Manhattan anymore.
And in 2012, she will be 22, as will I.

It's just...how would our lives be different if we stopped worrying about failure? About money? How would it be if we just jumped head-first into things?
When you're a kid, you have this imagination. Anything's possible. You don't understand when people say it isn't possible. That's just not something that happens.
And then we grow up and we keep hearing that things aren't possible, and we start to believe it. When we fail it's so magnified in our minds and other's that we start believing that failure is nearly guaranteed, so why would we take big chances where if we fail, a million people will be watching?

What if we finally asked that person out? What if that's the person we marry? What if that's the person who will lead us to who we marry? What if that's the person who will become our best friend?
What if we tried to become a professional painter? What if we kept painting, even though only our friends showed up to our shows? What if we learned? What if we stopped listening to everyone who said it's impossible?
What if we moved to New York, or LA, or San Francisco? What if we ignored the naysayers who said it was dangerous and we'd fail? What if we walked down Broadway and saw our name in lights? What if we lived in cities where anything is possible?

How would our lives change if we figured out that nothing is impossible?