Here's to starting a new book.

You know, it really is kind of sad when I begin to think about the fact I am moving half way across the country in a few short days.  I have done a rather good job of not allowing myself to fully explore the depth of emotions which go along with leaving home.  That's rare for someone like me, I typically explore the road of sadness and regret.  Don't get me wrong my mind has wondered down those roads I simply won't allow myself to stay on that path for too long.

I will miss the familiar roads of my city.  I will miss the friends I've made, the job I've known for the last 4 years, the place I've called home for the last 7 years, and the routines I've developed since I've lived here.  I think this is how life works, for the most part.  We get so comfortable with our routines and become so familiar with life that it doesn't matter how dysfunctional or unhealthy our situations in life have become.  We will stay afloat in the mirky waters of mundane familiarity so long as our arms will hold our heads above the water.  

Now please don't read what I'm not trying to say.  I love my city, I love my life, and I love all of the people I've grown to call friends in this city.  Hell, I will even miss the people I have grown to not call friends.  There simply comes a day when it's time to move on for the sake of change and that time has come for me.

A character cannot change into someone else while in the middle of a story.  Tom Hanks played Kip Wilson in the TV show "Bosom Buddies."  He couldn't change to the character of Captain Miller that Tom played in "Saving Private Ryan" until he changed his character, grew more mature, and switched into a different story.  A character cannot simply change and become someone completely different while living in the same setting and within the same plot structure.  The story has to change, the plot has to change, and the other characters have to change if the protagonist is going to mature and move on.  That's how I am ultimately looking at this change in my life.

I have typically been the type of character who's attempted to change within his current setting and plot.  Let me tell you from the last so many years that it's impossible.  It could've been relationships, friendships, jobs, volunteer positions, whatever.  When you try to change who you are while still living in the old setting and around the same characters your change rarely happens.  Don't get me wrong, I would love to stay in my current setting, I would love to continue my life in the same story I find myself, but I have realized I won't change unless almost everything else in my story changes.

I've always stuck around situations and relationships long after it was obvious that it was time to move on.  There is something about time.  I guess I have always hoped time would heal everything and time would make everything work out for the better.  Call it me giving up on time or whatever you'd like to call it, the fact remains time has not healed all wounds and time has not changed who I am.  I would love more than anything for time to have mended my last relationship and for time to have worked its magic and changed who I am.  Like I've already said, time will never change who I am.  If I want my character to change I'll have to take control of the pen and write something and someone new.

This is no easy task.  It's sad to think of me moving on, of me becoming someone else and living inside new routines and new familiarity.  It's sad and exciting all at the same time.  Sad because I am leaving what I've known for the last 7 years and exciting because I know I will be becoming someone and something much better than what I currently am.

So, to everyone I've ever known in Syracuse.  To the familiar roads I've traveled, to the familiar restaurants and coffee shops I've frequented, to route 5 which I drove down all those late nights thinking about my life.  To the winters of snow, to the falls of glorious beauty, and to the summers at Skaneateles.  Thank you.  You've made me who I am and gotten me to this place of change.  I will miss this life.  I don't view this as a new chapter.  I view this as me closing a book, a book which I loved reading, and now I am starting a new book.

So here's to starting a new book and hoping it's better than the last.

Cheers,

Anthony.