The Oldening
So my birthday is a week from today. I will be 24. It doesn't seem a terribly significant number, and yet, for reasons I don't fully understand, I'm tremendously excited about this one.
Lately I think I went through a short bout of depression. I was feeling like I wasn't accomplishing enough; conversations with my parents and with one or two friends of mine left me feeling like I was wasting my time, or my education, or somethingorother. Then I had other friends, especially those of my friends who are in their late twenties to early forties (and there are a surprising number of those in my life now), telling me to stop worrying. I'm 23, for God's sake. This is SUPPOSED to be the most irresponsible period of my life. And I seem to be embracing that whole-heartedly.
However, it IS true that I've been especially lazy lately. I wasn't doing ANY writing, and my guitar practice was flagging. It's interesting, but it seems that my writing and my guitar skills are really the only two things I'm actually working to improve about myself these days. Call them hobbies, and I guess the guitar fits that bill pretty well, but the writing is (supposedly) what I want to do with my life; therefore even just the act of doing it every day improves my chances of making money off it some time down the road.
Anyway. Lately I had a moment of realization that I don't HAVE to be this lazy. Then I put on some nice clothes, put a notebook in my guitar case, and carried the whole business off to Fremont for an hour of practice and poetry-writing by the canal, and then another hour of short-story writing in a coffee shop. I will do the same today. The nice weather helps - I feel like a war criminal if I stay inside when it's this gorgeous outside.
I've also been trying to spend less money lately. This has meant drinking less, something which EVERYONE has been harping at me to do for quite a while. Well, you will all be relieved to know that I've finally been driven so deeply into poverty that the logical part of my brain has taken over in order to keep me from starving. Actually the biggest thing that's killing me is debt. Once I can pay that off, I can actually start making money again - you know, having more cash in the account than I did the month before, that sort of thing. So I spent an evening crunching some numbers, and I THINK I might be able to make a slow but steady net gain even while I'm still paying off the debt, if I can manage to not eat when I don't have to, and only drink on karaoke night when it's more appropriate anyway.
So all this to say: I'm going into this next year of my life with considerably more hope and excitement than I think I really expected to have. Not that my life has changed all that dramatically in the last month or so; but I feel like I've come round a bend in my mental philosophy, and can start walking a good deal more deliberately and purposefully down the next stretch, with a guitar strapped to my back, a notebook in my hand, and a pen tucked above my ear.
Now if only I could find someone to fall recklessly in love with.
For those of you who've managed to get all the way to the bottom of this hideously long blog: Come to my birthday party! It starts at 9:00PM at the Triangle Lounge in Fremont on Sunday March 2nd (that's this coming Sunday) and continues through Monday night at the Dubliner through to Tuesday morning, March 4th, which is my actual birthday. People with questions should message or call me.
Lately I think I went through a short bout of depression. I was feeling like I wasn't accomplishing enough; conversations with my parents and with one or two friends of mine left me feeling like I was wasting my time, or my education, or somethingorother. Then I had other friends, especially those of my friends who are in their late twenties to early forties (and there are a surprising number of those in my life now), telling me to stop worrying. I'm 23, for God's sake. This is SUPPOSED to be the most irresponsible period of my life. And I seem to be embracing that whole-heartedly.
However, it IS true that I've been especially lazy lately. I wasn't doing ANY writing, and my guitar practice was flagging. It's interesting, but it seems that my writing and my guitar skills are really the only two things I'm actually working to improve about myself these days. Call them hobbies, and I guess the guitar fits that bill pretty well, but the writing is (supposedly) what I want to do with my life; therefore even just the act of doing it every day improves my chances of making money off it some time down the road.
Anyway. Lately I had a moment of realization that I don't HAVE to be this lazy. Then I put on some nice clothes, put a notebook in my guitar case, and carried the whole business off to Fremont for an hour of practice and poetry-writing by the canal, and then another hour of short-story writing in a coffee shop. I will do the same today. The nice weather helps - I feel like a war criminal if I stay inside when it's this gorgeous outside.
I've also been trying to spend less money lately. This has meant drinking less, something which EVERYONE has been harping at me to do for quite a while. Well, you will all be relieved to know that I've finally been driven so deeply into poverty that the logical part of my brain has taken over in order to keep me from starving. Actually the biggest thing that's killing me is debt. Once I can pay that off, I can actually start making money again - you know, having more cash in the account than I did the month before, that sort of thing. So I spent an evening crunching some numbers, and I THINK I might be able to make a slow but steady net gain even while I'm still paying off the debt, if I can manage to not eat when I don't have to, and only drink on karaoke night when it's more appropriate anyway.
So all this to say: I'm going into this next year of my life with considerably more hope and excitement than I think I really expected to have. Not that my life has changed all that dramatically in the last month or so; but I feel like I've come round a bend in my mental philosophy, and can start walking a good deal more deliberately and purposefully down the next stretch, with a guitar strapped to my back, a notebook in my hand, and a pen tucked above my ear.
Now if only I could find someone to fall recklessly in love with.
For those of you who've managed to get all the way to the bottom of this hideously long blog: Come to my birthday party! It starts at 9:00PM at the Triangle Lounge in Fremont on Sunday March 2nd (that's this coming Sunday) and continues through Monday night at the Dubliner through to Tuesday morning, March 4th, which is my actual birthday. People with questions should message or call me.