Youth & Young Manhood

How “Boy Meets World” Changed My Life.

I realized tonight while drinking some beers over dinner with the lovely Amanda, that everything in life needs to be done step by step. This especially applies when things are concerning where you want your life to go in terms of financial stability, career advancement, and overall happiness with once existence.

While discussing these topics it dawned on me that life threw me a small little curveball while watching “Boy Meets World” today at the gym. Lately I’ve been feeling distraught at what my life has become. I went from feeling like an independent and free soul, living the life in San Francisco, to feeling like I am 16 years old all over again, living under my parents roof. This being because I am now living once again, under my parents roof. 

I long for the feeling of not knowing what’s next. Not knowing whats around the corner, both literally in a neighborhood you’ve never known, and figuratively with the excitement of something new in life. All these feelings have taken me on an emotional rollercoaster the last couple of months and I finally realized how over it I really am. 

At the end of my third drink, conversation got as real as it gets, when suddenly, that lightbulb we all hear about finally went off in my head. The only way to get to where I want to be, is to take it one step at a time. I decided that the only logical way for me to get to LA and be financially stable and able to support myself in LA is to take a job right now in a business that has a chain that can be found in LA, and would be simple to transfer. I should bite my tongue and swallow my pride and get a job, apply for a transfer and as life usually does, hope that it will pan out how you want. I’d continue to work there while I save money and reach out and continue to widen my experience in the field I love. 

Being in LA will make it easier to find a job in LA. The commute between OC and LA is too much to even get someone to WANT to work out there. Being in LA will rejuvinate me. Being in LA will allow me to meet new people, and will allow me to live brand new adventures and experiences. All new loves, heartbreaks, and challenges. The excitement that I’ve lost. The city life, I’ve grown to love. 

Now now, I know you’re probably wondering how “Boy Meets World” had anything to do with this. Upon my own epiphany from hypothetical reasoning, I then recalled a similar situation I had seen earlier in the day while doing some cardio at Fitness 19. Cory and Topanga had been living in an unsanitary, barely standing apartment, and they had both grown out of it. In desperation they both engaged on a full blown house hunt, while not having any of the funds to even consider purchasing ANY type of property. They resorted to their safety net; their parents, and were shocked to find that neither would help them. After long thought, they figured out on their own, that everything has to be done step by step. Sometimes you have to stay with the card life dealt you. You have to suck up your pride and make the best of the situation you currently have, in order to make room for the better situation that is next to come. Cory began with finally accepting the shithole of an apartment that he and Topanga shared, and he sought after fixing the kitchen sink, and finally having drinkable water. This one small step then led to him eventually re-doing the entire apartment, and finally making it their own. This would eventually lead them down the road to home-ownership by allowing them to continue saving and finding security and then making their next move. 

This all clicked within my head and heart, and I realized that for now, although I am not happy in Orange, I can work, save money, become stable, apply for a transfer to an LA store in whatever chain I work for, if denied, I’d still have the money saved to get me through two months of rent in which time will give me the ability to acquire another job, whichever it may be to pay for continued rent, then i’d have the accessibility and time to work on getting to where I want to be within LA. 

All in all, I need to be in LA to be happy, and I’m going to make it happen. 

One step at a time. 

An Open Letter to Weed.

Dear Marijuana, 

We’ve been together for the past 7 years. I have cherished every single moment we’ve spent together, the good times we had both by ourselves and in the company of many, and boy have there been many. 

I don’t know how else to say this, but considering we’ve been in the longest relationship I’ve had to date, I feel you deserve nothing but the truth. I apologize sincerely, but you’ve come to give me major anxiety every time I give in to your almost addictive lure. 

I used to always have such fun, I’d laugh, you’d get me thinking of the most beautiful things, you helped me understand things about myself and the world around me on a level that I had no idea even existed. But now you’re influence consistently has me on edge. You make me feel both nervous and paranoid and it’s gotten so bad that I’ve unfortunately begun to have “episodes” of anxiety attacks. Episodes, as in more than one. I just can’t seem to enjoy the time we spend anymore, plain and simple. 

I think we should consider taking a break. A break from this daily habit of ours. It will allow me to focus more on myself, and I’ll be able to hopefully regain some sort of stable mental health. I know our paths will most definitely cross again and I can only hope that by then, when I give in to your irresistible temptation, we’ll have the fun we used to have. 

You’ve gained a special place in my heart, Marijuana, and I will treasure everything from the past seven years for the rest of my life. But like everything in this world, things come to an end. 

Goodbye. (For now). 

Sincerely yours, 

Cesar “Chief Running Deer” Cortez

what once was

It’s so strange to me that San Francisco is no longer my home. It’s strange to me that I can no longer go on those daily bike rides through the sunset, or admire the view from the moraga hill, or even smell the fresh and crisp air that flowed through the city like water down a stream.

San Francisco was one of the most precious chapters of my life. So much life was lived while I was there. While I wish I could be content with the fact that I lived it to the fullest, I instead find myself being saddened by the fact that I can’t be in “that place” again. By that I mean in a place where I felt like anything was possible. The days were open, and nothing was planned, and things just sort of fell into place. Every day was a good day. Every nook and cranny of the city was a new sight to see. And I never saw it all. 

Now I’m back in Orange County. Living at home. And while seeing my family more than I did in San Francisco is great, I find myself utterly bored with life. I never go out anymore, I hang with the same 4 people all the time, and dating has become near impossible. I find myself surrounded by constant negativity from my parents unhappiness to my friends bullshit drama.

I had this notion that I was going to come back to Orange County with new eyes. Explore new places, meet new faces, and yet I have become a hermit who lives every day the same as the last. What the fuck is happening to me? I feel myself slowly falling into a hole of depression but I don’t want to allow myself to do so because I have the power to control how my life is lived while here. Yet I do nothing about it. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m hoping this is just a funk I’m in and soon I’ll be out of it. All I can hope for is that this unpaid gig leads to a great opportunity for me, that I eventually get some sort of job with benefits and pay, that I make new great friends, and finally find someone who I can engage in some sort of relationship with. I’m lonely, unhappy, and in need of some true love, true friendship and endless amounts of positivity. Here’s to hoping that the universe will send it my way. ( 6 tequila shots and soon to be two bowls deep).