There is a line in one of the songs in the Broadway musical RENT that goes, “How do you measure a year in the life?”. Well for me, this blog has now become a measure. This week marked several 1 year anniversaries for me. September 14th of 2004 was my very first entry here on jpatrickm.com. It was called Prologue. It was a brief beginning of what would become a very fast moving year of many changes. 8 days later, on the 22nd, I would hit the road with my roommate Dylan, in a Budget truck packed to the top, heading south for San Diego. We would spend the next 6 days on the road travelling through Oregon and the entire length of California. We were strangely carefree and eager for sunnier skies. Looking back, I think we were numb to the significance of our move. We didn’t seem at all phased by the fact that everything we owned was packed into a small 15 foot moving truck, or that we were moving to a city we’d only spent the better part of a weekend visiting, or even that we had never actually seen our new apartment that we rented over the internet. Needless-to-say, we took the grand leap of faith out of our comfort zone and never looked back.

I can’t believe it’s been a year. I haven’t been back to Seattle since and although I very much miss my friends there, San Diego has been good to me. It’s one of the few places I’ve lived, maybe the only place, where I haven’t spent part of the year reminiscing about the prior season or hoping for the next. It’s just week to week and weekend to weekend and I am completely content.

I’m not sure I would have observed the passing of this week with such reverence had it not been for this blog. A blog makes you aware of the passing of time. Even though I don’t post here very often, I’m aware of the lapse of time between my posts. Looking back on the September 2004 archive I am pulled right back to my last weeks and days in Seattle. I remember the yard sale that stretched until the very end and the endless packing of boxes. I remember the somber nights with friends enjoying the last days of both summer and Seattle.

I almost feel guilty that I like San Diego so much. I feel guilty that a year has passed and I’ve barely reached back to keep in contact with all my close friends. I even feel the subtle drift from my family in New Hampshire. I didn’t mean to lose contact or forget to call, it just happened. I wake up everyday and it’s sunny and I go about my work, and I walk around the yard with my cup of coffee and watch my roommates load the truck and head off to go surfing at sunset and I just forget and time stands still.

So how do you measure a year in the life? 525,600 minutes. In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife - or, as the song says, measure in love.

Maybe this year I’ll be a little better at measuring.

Happy Anniversary San Diego.

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