What I missed
When I was a teenager and depressed, all that helped was music. I stopped reading, I didn't really care about anything else, I lost almost all my friends (well, they were asshole teenagers anyway), I slept all the time, but I got my shit together to go out and hear music, because that was the only thing that still made me feel good. The problem was, before the internet, it was really hard to find the music you wanted to hear. It was hard to find like-minded people. And I didn't know a single venue that let you in if you were under 21. This was particularly true after Giuliani came to power--places that I'd been able to get into previously all of a sudden started carding. So I did the best I could with what I had, and that did not work out too well. I look back, I wonder what I should have done differently, and I still can't see what my options were. Find other kids at my school who were into punk rock? I went to a fairly small school, I still remember who everybody in it was, and I can't think of a single one besides me. There were kids into heavy metal, grunge (which even at the time I characterized as whiny white boys staring at their shoes), hip-hop, and those are all fine and legit interests to pursue (except for grunge, which I have no time for), but they weren't mine. I look back and I'm still not sure what I should've done.
I'm pretty sure what other people should have done (kept your hands off the starry-eyed teenage girl, for one, you asshole), and that would've helped me not be such a basket case in my 20s, but...meh. Nowadays, when I'm depressed, I spend a lot of time brooding about what I missed out on, what I can't get back. Particularly now that I'm expecting a baby. My life is about to change in a massive way, I think, and I hear a lot of doors closing, doors that probably closed about five or ten years ago anyway, but when you're single and childless, you can fool yourself for longer.
Make no mistake. This is a much-wanted baby. I have wanted a baby for years and years. But I have conflicting feelings and some of them are about trying to come to terms with just having missed out on what feels like a massively important aspect of life. You know how many people I dated up to age 22? Zero. In my twenties, I went for three-year stretches without getting laid (I can't say my life now is a never-ending cavalcade of erotic adventure, but, well, I'm older, most people I know have settled down anyway). I spent a lot of time indoors reading instead of out at clubs, dancing. And again...once I get past 26, I'm not sure what I should've done differently. I was in Phillie. The internet had happened, so I did my research and went out lots of places (I remembered the name of that night--it was "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control"). But you know what? Philadelphia is actually kind of boring. Yeah, yeah, we were never bored because we were never being boring, but you weren't in fucking Philadelphia, then, were you? I went as hard as I could, but...it's just a boring place. And I still had the friend problem. Which is to say, I had awesome friends, but almost none of them shared my taste in music and nightlife. At least by this point I could drink.
So I look back, and I'm not sure what I would do differently. Maybe have a bit more self-confidence and dye my hair fire engine red when I was 16 instead of 26, but I'm not sure that would have really changed things so terribly much.
Sometimes doors close, the timing is wrong, and you just miss out, and you don't get that chance again. And you need to find a way to live with that. But I'm not quite sure how.
I'm pretty sure what other people should have done (kept your hands off the starry-eyed teenage girl, for one, you asshole), and that would've helped me not be such a basket case in my 20s, but...meh. Nowadays, when I'm depressed, I spend a lot of time brooding about what I missed out on, what I can't get back. Particularly now that I'm expecting a baby. My life is about to change in a massive way, I think, and I hear a lot of doors closing, doors that probably closed about five or ten years ago anyway, but when you're single and childless, you can fool yourself for longer.
Make no mistake. This is a much-wanted baby. I have wanted a baby for years and years. But I have conflicting feelings and some of them are about trying to come to terms with just having missed out on what feels like a massively important aspect of life. You know how many people I dated up to age 22? Zero. In my twenties, I went for three-year stretches without getting laid (I can't say my life now is a never-ending cavalcade of erotic adventure, but, well, I'm older, most people I know have settled down anyway). I spent a lot of time indoors reading instead of out at clubs, dancing. And again...once I get past 26, I'm not sure what I should've done differently. I was in Phillie. The internet had happened, so I did my research and went out lots of places (I remembered the name of that night--it was "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control"). But you know what? Philadelphia is actually kind of boring. Yeah, yeah, we were never bored because we were never being boring, but you weren't in fucking Philadelphia, then, were you? I went as hard as I could, but...it's just a boring place. And I still had the friend problem. Which is to say, I had awesome friends, but almost none of them shared my taste in music and nightlife. At least by this point I could drink.
So I look back, and I'm not sure what I would do differently. Maybe have a bit more self-confidence and dye my hair fire engine red when I was 16 instead of 26, but I'm not sure that would have really changed things so terribly much.
Sometimes doors close, the timing is wrong, and you just miss out, and you don't get that chance again. And you need to find a way to live with that. But I'm not quite sure how.