Just as a warning... this is prob gonna be long and boring. You can prob skip everything below and just read the last paragraph or so.
Life started out simple enough.. running around playing with kids from the hood. Relatively well adjusted. Goals were simple... 1. Have fun 2. Dont piss off mom and dad 3. Annoy KK (which ended up conflicting with goal #2 often times, but that was acceptable).
As most things in life change happened. Elementary school was over and middle school happened. Things got a bit more complex. There was a bit more pressure from above to succeed academically and with music. Friends changed... went from being with the popular kids (yes i wasnt always such a nerd haha) to being middle of the road.
Then come high school and of course as is inevitable more change. Even more pressure to step up the academics i think a little more pressure on the music. Then add in all the other growing up stuff... women, fashion, misc teen drama, the want to impress other people.. you know normal stuff (or at least what i think is normal).
As is pretty common at this stage in life your goals start to diverge from those of your parents. I still saw some of the things in a similar way with my parents, but more and more I wanted to do my own things and have my own goals. I think it was at this point i really started to kind of just kind of stuck to the saying "the nail that sticks out gets hammered". Just try to do the minimum to get by w/o getting hassled by the man.
It was at this juncture that i think something inside me kind of gave up. I no longer really had any goals or direction in life other then to just follow the path i felt like people expected me to follow and do as little as i could to get there. This was a pretty un-fulfilling life style, but i was always to squeeze out a smile and a "good" when asked how things are.
I think this is also when i started to get super competitive in things like sports.. like to the point of getting completely infuriated with anything i considered failure. Unfortunately this didnt transfer to things like getting good grades, or going to classes... especially orchestra, which i was basically completely uninterested in at this point.
Then came the zoned out years of college. I dont think i really had an ambition in the world this whole time except to make it out alive. Having "fun" increasingly involved me not remembering nights of my life. In fact i dont remember too many good times that i want soon trashed out of my mind. I didnt make much effort to meet new people or have new experiences. Just accepted living at home and zombie walking my way through life. I think i really shut myself off to the world in many ways. I spent most of my time in my room or working. Kind of just shoved all my emotions good or bad somewhere deep inside.
My "fun" habits landed me in a bit a of trouble and prob sunk me into one of the strangest periods in my life. The DUI era was pretty depressing and in general it sucked hardcore. I dont think i was ever really honest with myself on the reasons surrounding the whole circumstance. But i think a lot of the reasons should kinda be showing up through my tale.
All this stuff kinda culminated with me runnin off to vegas with some girl that really wasnt right for me, but i convinced myself she was because honestly i liked the feeling that i got when i was with her. I think i felt oddly validated by the whole situation and i think somewhere inside i liked that it went against my parents.
Having this whole deal happen before grad sucked, but hey goal met! I made it out of college alive!
After graduating I convinced myself that I needed to move away (run away) to live the life i wanted to live, which as i see things now is a completely invalid path of logic. After months of basically only searching out of state I realized that I prob should get a job in general. So i sucked it up once again and looked for a job in colorado, which yielded results almost immediately.. interviews within weeks and a job offer after about a month.
At this point i dunno why i kept living at home. I think its because it was easy and it kept me away from conflict and I had gotten used to the life style. I filled the empty parts of my life with the rec center. It started with just every now and then.. now its a lifestyle. I'm prob there more then people that actually work there. I like to joke about living with the rents causing me to be so fit, but its the honest to god truth. The culmination of this obsession is prob now with me swimming MWF mornings AND lifting MWF nights. Often on tues or thurs i would go to the rec and run or ball or swim. Not that i dont enjoy it... i just dont know if it would have naturally gotten to this point or not.
I feel like im prob the most lost now then i've ever been in my life. After kinda floating my way through life for so long when i think bout it now i'm at a strange stage. I'm 24 living at home, which isnt TOO abnormal, but a little bit. Mentally I think I have the mentality of like a freshman in college, while socially i need to handle situations with people who mentally are like 10+ years older then me. Money, kids, careers... none of this resonates with me... at all. Socially i find it hard to fit in.. dunno if its because i am unconfident of myself or because i dont really relate with people of my age or something else. Women... you know the story there. Financially... basically i have loads (for now) and plenty of material goods that bought me happiness briefly.
The reason I am writing this is part of my new effort to change things about myself. I think i need to open myself up emotionally. So here it is... the feelings of inadequacy i've experienced over the years putting it wayy out there, which actually makes me quite uncomfortable as i write.
I also need to take responsibility for the way things have worked out. My old excuse was to pass the buck. None of the horrible things in my life were my fault. I liked to put the blame somehow on my parents, which really isnt fair. Tho they might have done things that could potentially have held me back its my ultimate responsibility to react in a positive way... instead of in the weak way.
I think that grad school can be a fresh start for me and im sick of sitting back nd watching life go by. New people, new situations, new chance to grow up... I guess we'll see what materializes, but im looking forward to seeing what transpires and pushing myself out of my comfort zone whenever possible/as needed. Oh yeah congrats for making it through the most typing you'll prob ever see from me unless im writing some big paper thats worth 50% of my grade.
