It’s California nights like this that I  will miss the most. The air is warm and the breeze is cool and salty as it whispers secrets from the sea.  The moon and stars are dim as they give way to Jupiter’s magnificent shimmering halo. The wind through the tall twin palm trees is gentle and calming, yet powerful enough to drown out the sounds of gunfire and barking dogs in the distance. The beauty of the night spreads chills down my naked thighs. I am not cold tonight; I am not lonely or sad. I am not longing for lost romance, or pining for unrequited affection. No, not tonight. As the muffled sound of a car radio hits my ears, an old familiar tune strikes a cord in my memory, I am suddenly taken back to a decade of magic midnight adventures followed by the most amazing sunrises I have ever seen.

> **”Oh thinkin’ about all our younger years, There was only you and me, We were young and wild and free…”**

Oh the bittersweet memories I was once so afraid to let go of. I thought that if I didn’t hold on with everything I had, that I would be swept away in the dynamic tides of passion and eccentricity. I learned too late that by desperately clinging to how things used to be , I was in fact losing grip of what could be, of what needed to be.

This will always be home to me. I am not talking about this 2 bedroom town home that I share with my mum and our small petting zoo; not the house in the valley where my childhood was lost in a haze of drugged lies and whiskey goodbyes; not my beloved blue room by the beach where I tried to hide from the world, and myself. No, home is not found in the brick and morder dwellings where I have lived, but rather in the lives I have shared those places with, and the precious memories we created there. That is why leaving is so hard. While I know this is not goodbye, I cant help but feel like I am leaving a piece of me behind. My fear is that, with every state border and county line I cross, I will lose more and more parts of my already fractured self, until all that remains is a shell of the woman I used to be. But then again, isn’t that what everybody is hoping for? A fresh start, a new beginning for me.

> **Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”**

And I think that makes moving on a little easier to accept. It is the quiet understanding  that everything in life is finite and nothing lasts forever. It is a sad, yet freeing realization.  The darkness of this night will soon give way to the morning light, and in turn the day will then surrender to the night, with both the sun and the moon completely owning their temporary moments in the sky. And as is life. Nothing is eternal. We are all just visitors in our own realm of existence. And one day, our time on this earth will end. Nothing in life is everlasting. So in this moment, sitting beneath a sea of starlight, I am faced with a choice, a choice we all have as existentia beings. Do I spend the forseeable future mourning over glory days of long ago, captured in fading photographs and tattered old letters? Or do I let go of these chained memories? How much of our lives are wasted living for yesterday? And as Jupiter completes it’s eclipse of the moon, I understand how fleeting life is. All we have is this very moment. And there is so much magic and beauty to be found, if we just open our eyes to the present. So tonight, under this full moon of light and promise, I shed the weight of failed relationships and past mistakes. I surrender to the uncertainty of new beginning’s but more importantly, I embrace the beauty of the now. For in this moment, I am free. And there is no where else I would rather be.