Nine Years.
This is the best kept record of any period of my life. No photo album or shoebox full of nostalgic keepsakes is as succinct. Five years of writing that encapsulates my fledgling twenties known retrospectively as "the rough patch". These years were defined by intellectual insecurity and ennui.
I'm in my late twenties now and while I haven't decided on what to call the past five years, I can admit that they've been palatable. This year, marks the beginning of a mass exodus. So many of my nearest and dearest separately vowed to make it work elsewhere. Within months, Berlin, Stockholm, London, New York, Tokyo, Tuscany and the Bay Area have re-housed some of my best friends. It's as though I've bet on the wrong horse. And as the dust has settled from it all, it's grown quiet. I feel the restlessness boil over inside me. I'm frustrated. I begin to despise those who've stayed behind and dismiss them as complacent. I withdraw, fighting listlessness with an almost exhausting level of productivity. The work feels like I'm paddling with a single oar with no sign of shore. But I keep paddling the fuck out of that water, hoping it will get me somewhere.
If my early twenties was about moping around in my head, my late twenties is a tenacious bastard banging inside my chest trying to break through.
I'm in my late twenties now and while I haven't decided on what to call the past five years, I can admit that they've been palatable. This year, marks the beginning of a mass exodus. So many of my nearest and dearest separately vowed to make it work elsewhere. Within months, Berlin, Stockholm, London, New York, Tokyo, Tuscany and the Bay Area have re-housed some of my best friends. It's as though I've bet on the wrong horse. And as the dust has settled from it all, it's grown quiet. I feel the restlessness boil over inside me. I'm frustrated. I begin to despise those who've stayed behind and dismiss them as complacent. I withdraw, fighting listlessness with an almost exhausting level of productivity. The work feels like I'm paddling with a single oar with no sign of shore. But I keep paddling the fuck out of that water, hoping it will get me somewhere.
If my early twenties was about moping around in my head, my late twenties is a tenacious bastard banging inside my chest trying to break through.