april 17
happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear me-e, happy birthday to me.
So im 36 today. Jesus fucking christ. I was out with this girl the other night and I mentioned it was my birthday in a couple of days so we did that stupid guessing thing and she said "25?". I get that alot, I guess I don't look 36. Whatever 36 looks like. Then I asked her how old she was and she said 23. She gave me a nice piece of art this morning as a birthday present, and a box of raisins, which I ate while walking through Portland down to the shop. She's pretty rad.
Jesus I need friends my own age. Or maybe not. I dont know. There are times when I think that matters, times when I dont.
I will say that for me, I think I only became the person I am in the last 3 years. Almost everything that really makes up the me of now has happened since I turned 33. I'm serious. I distinctly remember thinking, on my 33d birthday, that I needed to grow up. I had been floating (literally, often) around for almost 10 years, in various places, teaching, sailing, messing around. No roots. I didnt really have any close friends, and I hadn't had a serious relationship since I was probably 26 or so, which ended before I moved to St Thomas. Really from St Thomas on, fall of '96, through that 33d birthday, which occurred after I came back to Maine from New York after floating through the Caribbean and Florida and elsewhere for awhile, I had no real connections of any kind in my life. I lost track of all of my old friends. I stopped playing music. And I was fricking miserable, and just starting to realize how miserable I was. I had thought, how cool would it be to just be a sailing bum for the rest of my life, hang around warm tropical places, etc. What I didnt realize then was that it isn't the place that matters, it's what you're doing in the place that matters, and I wasnt really doing anything that hepled me be a fuller person, I was just teaching and sailing and drinking and smoking doobie and all of the other things sailors do. Sailors, on the whole, are a fun loving bunch, but they are also generally pretty conservative in alot of ways, not perhaps strictly in a policital sense per se but in many other ways. So the idea of being a sailing bum and floating around lost it's appeal.
So I started to play music again, and had a couple of other life changing experiences that shall remain private, even though there's maybe only one or two people who will ever read this entry besides myself. And recently I've started to believe that, as much as we often like to say there's no point to regret, that it does no good, I can't help thinking that there IS a point to regret, that it is a natural emotion, that it helps remind us how important it is to try and be the best people we can be in various areas of our lives. I certainly have regrets about certain things that have happened in the last 2-3 years. And I always will. And I have stopped trying to purge the regret. I regret things I did. I SHOULD regret some things I did. And I am glad I DO regret them, as I know I will never forget what I did, and how it made me feel, largely for what I know it made someone else feel, but mostly for what it made me feel. FOr everything that happened, had to do with me. It's truly not about what's done to you, but about what you do...not that anything was done to me in the cirumstance, far from it...or at least, whatever was 'done' to me was done by me alone.
And it has helped me to be a better person, in relationships I've had since then, and am having now, friendships or lovers included. In a way I guess I'm sort of born again but not in any sort of religious way, really. Maybe in more of a philosophical or human way. And I still have many many hang ups and still don't make a particularly good boyfriend and still am basically an outsider and more or less alone in most ways.
But it's not what's done to you, it's what you do.
So im 36 today. Jesus fucking christ. I was out with this girl the other night and I mentioned it was my birthday in a couple of days so we did that stupid guessing thing and she said "25?". I get that alot, I guess I don't look 36. Whatever 36 looks like. Then I asked her how old she was and she said 23. She gave me a nice piece of art this morning as a birthday present, and a box of raisins, which I ate while walking through Portland down to the shop. She's pretty rad.
Jesus I need friends my own age. Or maybe not. I dont know. There are times when I think that matters, times when I dont.
I will say that for me, I think I only became the person I am in the last 3 years. Almost everything that really makes up the me of now has happened since I turned 33. I'm serious. I distinctly remember thinking, on my 33d birthday, that I needed to grow up. I had been floating (literally, often) around for almost 10 years, in various places, teaching, sailing, messing around. No roots. I didnt really have any close friends, and I hadn't had a serious relationship since I was probably 26 or so, which ended before I moved to St Thomas. Really from St Thomas on, fall of '96, through that 33d birthday, which occurred after I came back to Maine from New York after floating through the Caribbean and Florida and elsewhere for awhile, I had no real connections of any kind in my life. I lost track of all of my old friends. I stopped playing music. And I was fricking miserable, and just starting to realize how miserable I was. I had thought, how cool would it be to just be a sailing bum for the rest of my life, hang around warm tropical places, etc. What I didnt realize then was that it isn't the place that matters, it's what you're doing in the place that matters, and I wasnt really doing anything that hepled me be a fuller person, I was just teaching and sailing and drinking and smoking doobie and all of the other things sailors do. Sailors, on the whole, are a fun loving bunch, but they are also generally pretty conservative in alot of ways, not perhaps strictly in a policital sense per se but in many other ways. So the idea of being a sailing bum and floating around lost it's appeal.
So I started to play music again, and had a couple of other life changing experiences that shall remain private, even though there's maybe only one or two people who will ever read this entry besides myself. And recently I've started to believe that, as much as we often like to say there's no point to regret, that it does no good, I can't help thinking that there IS a point to regret, that it is a natural emotion, that it helps remind us how important it is to try and be the best people we can be in various areas of our lives. I certainly have regrets about certain things that have happened in the last 2-3 years. And I always will. And I have stopped trying to purge the regret. I regret things I did. I SHOULD regret some things I did. And I am glad I DO regret them, as I know I will never forget what I did, and how it made me feel, largely for what I know it made someone else feel, but mostly for what it made me feel. FOr everything that happened, had to do with me. It's truly not about what's done to you, but about what you do...not that anything was done to me in the cirumstance, far from it...or at least, whatever was 'done' to me was done by me alone.
And it has helped me to be a better person, in relationships I've had since then, and am having now, friendships or lovers included. In a way I guess I'm sort of born again but not in any sort of religious way, really. Maybe in more of a philosophical or human way. And I still have many many hang ups and still don't make a particularly good boyfriend and still am basically an outsider and more or less alone in most ways.
But it's not what's done to you, it's what you do.