Glad To Be In Atlanta

Long, introspective post here. Over the past fifteen minutes or so, I found myself "flipping" through some of my oldest tagged photos of myself on Facebook, some of which go back to my second year in Bloomington (which is also roughly when Facebook added the photo album function), and I came to the realization of how happy I am here in Atlanta at this general point of my life.

You know, it's easy to take for granted, but of all the different stages of my life since high school graduation (Miami, UGA, IU, the NL, and ATL), I'm easily the happiest, most-content, and most-self-assured here in my hometown, much to my surprise. Granted, this didn't happen until well after I had moved here (actually, it didn't even happen until this year, which was at best 15+ months into my life back in Atlanta), but now that my life's really headed in the direction I want, I can't complain.

I mean, going down the list: Miami was exciting (being my first time to college), but the very reason I left (my girlfriend at the time) was just the beginning of four more years of not knowing myself. UGA was certainly foundational (especially in terms of my developing love for minimalism, which still influences me today), but again, there was that long relationship clouding the experience. While IU was where I finally started figuring myself out (including finding some great friends), you could say it was unstable by nature of being a sort of growing pains learning experience for me. And then, completing that cycle was The Netherlands, which offered even more insight into who I was but was ultimately the least stable of all the places I've lived.

And that brings us to my time in Atlanta. The big milestones in my experience here would be deciding to stay here in the first place (instead of moving to Bloomington), meeting Candace and having her introduce much of the city to me, moving in with Evan (or, better put, out of my parents' place), and finally, deciding to start up a band here, which has easily been the most-fulfilling (if even also the slowest-developing) endeavor I've undertaken since the UGA Philip Glass Ensemble, if not ever. Add to this the fact that I've had steady (in a net gains sort of way) work that has been on my own terms for the entire time and that I've recently started really finding some friends in town, and you've got a pretty happy guy.

Sure, Atlanta's not the most ideal place in the country for me to live (hell, I've looked into San Francisco and even Vancouver since living here), but I'm super-happy here. I've found friends, a scene, a band, work, and perhaps most-importantly, a sense of self-awareness and the accompanying life-rhythm it brings. Sure, I might not have EVERYTHING I want here in this one place, but I'm working on it, and as long as that's true, I'm happy...