Awakened

Time, Memory, and the Long Consequences of Living….

I’ve had people explain to me how allowing Jesus Christ into their lives opened the world up for them. 

Other friends have attempted to elucidate how becoming parents caused them to look at the world in a completely different way.

I have had neither experience, but still I understood.

I’ve explained how the art stuff I do makes me aware of a connection to something much larger than myself—

This is not about that; that is a connection, not a realization.

This is about the time when I realized who I am. Who I really am.

It opened my mind up to a different world than the one I’d been living in—

Much like the friend who came to embrace Christianity or the other friend who had a child.

As they shared their experiences with me, I will now share mine with you.

It was January 2012. I helped my sister and her husband move from Colorado to Vancouver, Washington. The plan was to help them move, visit with my friend Mark in Portland for a week, then return home. That in mind, all I had was a carry on suitcase. Something unexpected happened, though, I fell in love with Portland. I fell for this town and set about attempting to live here. I updated my resume and—with help from my aunt—rented a room in Foster-Powell. This was the tail end of “Old Portland,” you could still rent a decent room for $300 a month. My possessions fit in a corner of my room: The suitcase. A sleeping bag and pad I borrowed from Mark. A couple of books from Goodwill. Art supplies from the dollar store. I had nothing…and I was happy with what little I had.

Realizing I needed so little to be happy was a life changing experience.

Up to that point, I had gone along with believing that you needed furniture and a large television and a closet full of clothes to be happy—

No, all I needed fit in a carry on suitcase.

That was when I awakened to who I am, who I really am, and realized how fortunate I am to require so little to be happy.

My first wife and I were in dire straits in Sacramento. We moved to Phoenix and turned our lives around. When the two of us had money coming in we filled our rental house with furniture, most of it new. Audrey and I bought couches and tables, bookcases and a chest freezer. Every room had to have furniture in it. That was what you do: You buy a bunch of grown up furniture because that’s what grown ups do. You want to have people over and, well, what will your friends think if you don’t have a bunch of couches, chairs, and a large table? When our fortunes returned to desperation, we filled a 26 foot moving truck with all that stuff and returned to Sacramento. My wife and I moved into her mother’s house so we rented two storage units for all that stuff. In the end, we sold all that furniture for a fraction of what had paid. With the money we lost on all that stuff we could have driven cross country and had the experience of a lifetime—

Instead, we bought a bunch of furniture that we may as well have given away…because that’s what grown ups are supposed to do.

I cleared out the storage units six months before my trip to Portland. My wife and I had separated and she had already moved back east. I had not awakened then; my thoughts were more on how much money we had wasted—

Oh well, I would get another job and get an apartment and buy furniture for my new place. When it was time to move, I would rent a large moving truck and hopefully have friends help me move. 

That’s just how you live, right?

And then I moved to Portland where I awakened.

I remember sitting on that worn, blue carpet in my chilly rented room when the truth—my truth—struck me.

I didn’t need to buy a bunch of stuff when I was working again, all I needed I could buy for a couple hundred dollars and easily move myself in a minivan.

It was overwhelming and I started crying——

Forty plus years of expectations just…gone.

This massive weight lifted.

That was my awakening, just like my friend who became a born again Christian and my other friend who now sees the world as a parent.

I was visiting my father a couple of days ago. We got to talking about Christmas and he was amused by how I told him I didn’t want anything.

“But you already gave me the sleeping bag,” I explained.

“That was for your birthday,” Dad counted. “What about Christmas?”

“I don’t need anything else,” was my reply.

And I don’t. I have learned to separate Need Wants from Fantasy Wants. 

All my Need Wants were met when Dad bought me a sleeping bag for my birthday.

Don’t get me wrong, I daydream about guitars, clothes, and books, but those are Fantasy Wants. Stuff—

Like all that furniture my first wife and I moved from Phoenix to Sacramento.

I don’t need that stuff to be happy*, in fact it would just get in the way.

To buy it, I would have to either put myself in debt or use money I’ve been saving for travel or recording in a real studio.

If I bought those things, it would just be more stuff to move when the time comes.

Fourteen years after sitting on that worn, blue carpet I am still awakened.

You would laugh if you saw my apartment: “Uh, dude, where’s the couch? Where’s the real bed and the television and the dresser? Where am I supposed to sit?”

But I’m happy with it, all my Need Wants are met. Granted, if I had a girlfriend I’m not so inflexible that I wouldn’t be open to buying a couch—

A small one, that I could move myself.

*Full disclosure, I need a preamp for my microphone and could use a PRS electric guitar to have a more diverse tone pallete when recording. Not sure if those things are Need Wants or Fantasy Wants….