Cibo

Cibo.

I have successfully returned to Austin, Texas alive. Understand that this is an accomplishment. For a while there, it felt like this is something that would have been unattainable.

My entire life I have been unselfish. I have always allowed for something else to take hold of my life and just went with the flow. No matter how difficult the situation or how I felt, I did not say. I would simply take it with a smile on my face and know that there would be a moment of redemption. Ladies and gentlemen, I am finally going to be selfish.

I arrived a little earlier. The GPS was perfectly accurate and for once in my life I allowed for the proper amount of time to get to a location. The establishment was located in a residential area and a few blocks from the Arizona State University Phoenix campus. Parking was on the street; which was easy as my vast experience of city driving while in Austin has made street parking my specialty.

I think back to why I moved to Austin and somewhere there is a sense of urgency. I moved to this city to start this career that was burning inside of me. Along the way, that fire was extinguished with doubt. The moment that I remember as being the one in which I know that my path had turned negative was when I passed on an evening of conversation with a friend to abuse alcohol. This started the zeitgeist into my demise.

The restaurant was a house. It had a very limited dining area that flowed outside to a large patio with a fire pit. A murmur of excitement was in the atmosphere as everyone had intense conversations. The energy level was perfect for a re-union of two old friends. We were introduced by mutual friends and it had been months since we had last spoken.

I can be very dramatic. I think out these very complex situations and place reasoning with why other people do certain actions and what I can do to anticipate just how a situation will result. This causes me to be a good story-teller as I know how to manipulate information in order to get a certain reaction, depending on my content. So, when I sit here and tell you about my demise and how brutal I have felt for however long, understand that I am being a writer. I am finally being what I am meant to be. Do you know how amazing it feels to actually follow your heart and dream?

We sat down. When we rose to get up it was because the restaurant was closing. We ordered food and drinks in the mean time. We declined dessert every fifteen minutes and the murmur inside of the restaurant dissipated until we were the only ones using voices that were definitely not inside voice approved. Over two hours had passed and the meaning of life was touched upon at least a half dozen times. We watched people walk past outside and wondered about everything. When it was over, it was all too soon. But as with anything in life, brevity will make the best moments that much grander.

I was raised in a family of inclusion. It is a family that has no boundaries and one that will openly discuss bowel movements at the dinner table. It was a family that I was desperate to leave and one that I labeled for ruining my existence before it even started. What I never did was thank them for being simply amazing. I was so caught up with what was wrong with my family, that I neglected what made them wonderful.

I can only appreciate them after being away. What I used to think was nagging and what I used to think was tedious, was in fact just Love. It was their attempt to show compassion. Sure, everyone gets invited over for holidays and 25 people end up in a small house, but is that not what the holidays are for? The amount of Love that existed in that Arizona house for those few days filled my cup and soul with so much happiness. Of course at the end of the week I was ready to get back to work on my life, but I left feeling content again.

The theories and discoveries made at that Italian restaurant are things that can never be repeated. It is not because any of it was secret or blackmailing. But, because it wouldn’t make sense outside of that content. The moment that was shared was one in which so much beauty was in the environment that the entire time felt other worldly. It felt like the moment in which you find the meaning to life. See, on that side street of Phoenix we found that moment. Life was perfect in the discussion because we allowed it to be. Once we allow ourselves to be open and understanding, this place is magical.

All life is are the moments that we live in. We are not allowed to have any more than we are allotted. There is no point in whining about being too old or too young. There is no point in criticizing those in which can not effect your mind and soul. There is no point in being so hard on yourself that it causes you to never allow yourself to escape the grips of depression or doubt.

What there is time for is to be open. In order to Love, you have to be loved. You can never give what you do not have. You can never provide strength if you are not strong. You can never provide reason if you are in doubt. You can never fulfill anyone else, until you as a person understand what it is to be complete.

This past week of my life I went through the annuls of my past. I met with old friends and did past actions. I laughed at the same stories and spoke of how amazing my life is evolving. I thought of what has made me the person I am and what has caused me to be incomplete. What I have found is that the answers to every question and issue in which you ask yourself are actually residing in your heart. You are the only person that can heal or Love. You are the only person that can control what you have become or what you will become.

It was a week long journey that took me to many places in my past, but it was a moment in my present at a restaurant that I had never been to realize that all the tools I could ever need were nestled in my heart and mind.

Moral; Cibo has a very good lunch with an amazing setting. Friends are the people in this world that will always allow you to be open even if you cannot be truthful to yourself. Take a new perspective on life and change for no one, if they Love you, they will always Love you no matter what you become.