JG: Happy Birthday.. To Me!

Hi friends.

As I was hungover and bitter on the morn after my 20th birthday last year, I wrote this...

2/11/09

And then there was 20. I don’t even know what to say. Perhaps the f word. That might make me feel better. What perturbs me is this: if I’m this dissatisfied with my first score, how am I going to feel at 40. Fuck mid-life, I need a quarter-life crisis just to get back on track. I’ve lost any semblance of motivation I ever possessed. I’m more than half convinced (yet again) that there’s absolutely no need for college and I shouldn’t be here. In general, I’ve felt its unnecessary being before, but I never really thought it could hurt. Yet now, I think this place actually might be hindering me. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I know. I’m a bitch. I can hear me too. But shouldn’t I be doing something with my life? Shouldn’t I be smiling? Shouldn’t I be outside? Shouldn’t I be? I’ve been trying to find beauty in the little things, and to many extents, it’s working. But wallowing in a cumbersome layer of self-

pity is expediently trite, and the gloom of this dorm room isn’t helping much – just miles & miles of clichéd carpeting. The word mundane means lacking interest or excitement; dull, and I’ve used it often lately to respond to the hab

itual inquisitions of ‘how are you’ and ‘how’s it feel to be twenty’. Firstly, this word should not be a go to in my vocabulary. Secondly, this definitely should not be the response to such casual niceties as the aforementioned inquiries. But it just seems to come to mind. And again (I’ll make this piece full-circle here) I just don’t know wh

at to say. I know how to respond, yes, with sadness, anger, perhaps even further self-pity. But I still don’t know what to say – not even out loud, just an internal whispering of how to overcome. But I mustn’t fret because, despite my -1000 self esteem, I do admit I have one good (& refreshing) trait,

and that’s the fact that at

some point in my worries, I laugh. Sometimes it takes longer than others, hell, maybe I even have to cry first, but eventually it happens, and it’s brilliant. Just laughing something off because, well, in the long run, I really don’t care. I’ve never been a big fan of the inquiry ‘why?’ Sure for personal matters worth truly caring about I’ve used it many times. But in general, not a fan. To me, we are where we are, we can’t change the past, so who gives a [insert curse word here]? Go forward, move along, go yonder (whatever that means), do something. Hell, write a diary if it helps. I still love the Vonnegut quote – “Here we are stuck in the amber of this moment; there is no why”. And that’s brilliant to me, even if it was a quote from an extraterrestrial being. We’re here, we’ve reached some current brink, don’t overanalyze, just do – live your life, your moment, embrace the temporary, put quite simply - be. (Aside: this is also why I’ve never quite enjoyed history classes, but let’s not delve too deep and get carried away). I guess the whole point of this is that I’m confused. I need to explore more, and I mean that in the broadest sense. I’ll never be convinced on the school ideal, I never have been either, and yet I keep coming, so there must be something to it. The only real question is whether I’ll care enough to continue obtaining decent grades. That and the fact I’m no longer a teenager, coupled with the world of metaphorical losses I feel are a side order of dropping the ‘-teen’ from the end of your age. But right now, I don’t even know what to say. Just be.

...And my attempt to follow...

2/09/10

As I drink beers alone on the eve of my 21st birthday, I feel it's only right to wax nostalgic. As per my self-scrutinizing manifesto of a post from about a year ago, let's analyze. Quick recap, My goals: explore, be happy, be myself.

What's wrong with it is that I actually was happy sophomore year, and I've always been pretty damn good at being myself, or else I really wouldn't make so many misguided fashion decisions. It's just that when your hungover, angry, still slightly maudlin, and tell yourself you should write something, you tend to write things of this nature. But one year later, as I again shit my pants in the wake of the realization that my immature self is fast approaching the real world, I feel pretty much the same person, and I'm about 78% proud of that fact. I still lack self esteem, I still don't know what I'm doing in school (though by no means do I hate it, I just still don't

know what a Marketing major actually does), and I still sip 'n scribe (copyright DK). In my effort to embrace life, I feel I am doing so. A man named Robert once told me to "Rage", and I try to live my life by his words. I am drinking beers. I am going to a double-island fantasyland called New Zealand. I am seeing a Wilco concert. Will I steal street signs or break hilarious objects, well that is yet to be seen, but I feel whatever happens it will be right. Either way, what I think I'm trying to get at as I lay in my bed and sip a pseudo-American Budweiser, is that I'm content. Basically, on a list of emoticons, I'm a standard smiley face, and in a world where Avatar & Twilight are considered groundbreaking and Sandra Bullock is up

for an Oscar, I think that's all I can ask for - in fact, I'm overjoyed. So here's to you, fellow comrades and TSTLN'ers, cheers, I love y'all (except perhaps for whoever CR is, I think that's more lust than anything else). Hey, I just wrote a whole paragraph without even cursing, maybe I am growing up.