To Leave or Not To Leave

The days of summer get longer and longer, wielding the heat like a beacon of hope that vanishes just as it came in a few short months. As August draws near, the sunshine will diminish, and takes with it the remaining grasp we have on certain hopes. There is something to be said for the season. Winter is cold and depressing, while the Autumn sheds all its tears like the leaves off the branches, leaving us stripped and bare. Springtime holds promise, but does not fulfill all until Summer calls, with its high noon blue skies and precious rays. As for myself, I find that the Summer ending echoes by own feelings of hope stripped; no more ocean walks and bay breezes on any given day. I'm leaving the sand for the inland empire, trading in my carefree room with a view for a close study of mathematics, vocabulary, and of course accounting. (By accounting, I mean a magnifying glass centered on personal finance.)

Southern California is a strange land, pretending to be outside of any global crisis with all its pretty malls, beautiful people strutting, and even more beautiful people walking, talking, using plastic. Yet beneath the glamorous lifestyle lurks the truth of the impoverished glitterati. I know friends who have left the state after spending all their currency on high fashion and cocktails, then unable to pay for their own transportation or the roof over their hair-sprayed, color-treated head. What will it be? A vanilla latte and True Religion jeans or giving the landlord rent money? The lifestyle is simply not conducive to living below your means, unless one makes an attempt to walk the walk outside of the usual temptations. Yours truly is planning a comeback to a life well within the walls of old-fashioned conventions: work, study, make goals, achieve goals. None of this silly sorority perspective. There are a few good things about living in a dream land: Painting by the water, hearing the breeze on my back, feeling the windy rush as I tread the steps of the boardwalk, squishing the sand into my toes and rubbing tiny grains onto my tan skin, making patterns on my arms, by my elbows. Newport Beach is the land of the gorgeous children of the Golden State, but despite this one unfortunate trait, there are a few things more natural about the place. Which I will miss. It isn't all man-made sidewalks and restaurant food chains, and girls in too-short skirts and bikini tops. I will not thing so little of it. There is some charm left here, and despite my leave of the city and the departure of the sun, Summer is not the only season. Good things can happy at any time. Like happiness.