With New Eyes

I am home. It is certainly the home that I left behind not that long ago, but it does feel much different.

I flew into SFO and got onto BART. Traveling on BART was a new experience, unlike any BART outing I have had before. It occurred to me as I was riding home just how diverse the Bay Area really is. Nowhere is this more apparent than on BART. Every single person that gets on is of a different culture, background, race, sexual preference; some smell nice, some smell bad; some make a lot of noise while others make no sound at all. Ipods a plenty...this is defiantly my town, I thought. I got off at the Fremont station and proceeded to walk home. I cannot put to words the feelings of euphoria that I had while making this walk home. Hundreds, if not thousands of times have I drove, biked or walked down this stretch of road, but never before have I had such a wonderful feeling while doing it. I was so happy and thankful looking around at what I saw. There were flat, clean roadways; sidewalks that stretched on for miles all at the same general height; landscaped yards and medians as far as the eye could see! It was a marvelous experience; like visiting an old friend for the first time. Near the end of my walk, I came into my neighborhood. I could not help but get the sense that I was in a rich part of town. Looking at all the houses that had Christmas lights and perfectly kept grass and the different kids of lawn ornaments to suit each homeowners style. The houses were clean, beautiful, fresh and ohhh so much like home.

It was this night that I truly realized just how lucky I am to have grown up in such a wonderful neighborhood, city and country. I have all the opportunity right here and right now that this tiny world has to offer at this point in history. I can wake up one day and decide that I want to travel the world, and actually do it with relative ease. Never before in the history of man has travel been so easy to do. I was over 1000 miles away from home and in about 3 hours can cover all that land/sea to get where I want to be. Our ancestors could never have dreamed of the amount of freedom we have in this country. It is truly amazing the amount of opportunity I have to be able to make my life what I want it to be. You really cannot blame illegal immigrants for wanting to come to our country. If I were in their shoes, I would probably do the same thing. It is this opportunity that drives them. I now feel very fortunate to have been born into that opportunity.

I shaved earlier today, but above is how I looked after I woke up this morning...quite scary is it not?