Fragile: Handle Like Eggs

Breakdown
Breakthrough
Breaking ground for new thoughts feelings adventures.

Tears well up and stream down my face on the freeway as I pass nonexistent trees and empty lots full of car corpses, the memories of paved-over neighborhoods, the scummy haze creeping over the horizon. I scream into the windshield and beat the steering wheel. I sob and open the windows and let my hair flail and tangle in my snot and spit. I laugh because I know in Southern California this behavior is (kinda) normal. We emote in our public privacy. We are enclosed in glass and metal and are alone if we ignore our rear view mirrors and just stare at the taillights ahead. We sing at the top of our lungs and yell obscenities at the off-ramps and weep into our consoles.

I have been driven back here. When the drumbeats cease and the horns are only echoes in my head I nod at my friends, run a sweaty hand over warm-from-dancing backs, slip out the door. I walk towards the water searching out the curve of hulls and the skyward stretching of masts. I listen for the seagulls and the hollow snap of fish breaking the surface to snack. The lights of downtown cascade nighttime shadows over the bay. The bay! I sailed out of here with bioluminescent dolphins at the bow ten years ago with dreams of never coming back.
We were done San Diego, you and I.
At times like these I measure my life in nautical miles and 30,000 clicks and many lifetimes later here I am again staring up at skyscrapers and hills and wondering why I'm back.
Why I keep coming back.
(But I already know the answer.)
The breaking of hearts.
The breaking of bread.
The breaking waves calling me to surf and sit and contemplate.
The breaking of expectations of what or where I will be in another ten years.
The break with the past.
Breakdown
Breakthrough