I’m 27 and I’m going to be 28 this year.
The thought fills me with unease, a mild sort of panic. I wasn’t ready for this to happen so soon. I thought I was 17, then 20, then 22, then maybe 25. Now, before I know it, I’ll be 30. 35. 40.
At some levels, I’m still young. But at some other… things are going to start changing. Family members are going to start dying. Everybody’s lived through this before, everything ends in the end.
I found an old tweet from my younger self that said, “Do you know when you’re old? You’re old when you have more regrets than dreams.” And I certainly feel like that’s approaching. Like I’ve accumulated many regrets, and I’ve lost some dreams. But I’m not ready to let go, not yet. I need to take a moment to catch my breath – in real terms, this means that I need a lot of sleep, because my god I’ve been so sleep deprived – for literally years.
I saw an older-looking woman on the bus today. I’m guessing she was in her late 30s. She looked fit. It’s possible for men to be impressively, devastatingly fit in their 50s, 60s. I’d like to be that. I’ve missed out on about 10 years of opportunity to put in some really good work. But that doesn’t matter, as much as I’d like to mourn it. What matters is that I channel all of that regret into resolve. (Or should I try to diffuse it altogether? I think both. I think there are different states of being, and it’s worth preparing for multiple states.)
It took me literally over a hundred days to get from 0697 to 0700 – to do 3 word vomits. When I was writing over a thousand words every day in November, for the draft of my novel. What took me so long? I was tired, so I took a break for a while. And I think the first 30-60 days were good – but then I started to get a sort of background anxiety. It’s quite subtle stuff – I didn’t think it was happening, until it had already happened.
I was thinking about withdrawal symptoms in the shower this morning – I’d recently watched a Netflix special about Adderall, and I’m just thinking about how crashes work. It’s the same with quitting smoking, and quitting almost anything, really – as you build up your tolerance and usage, you increase the size of the crash that’s looming – and you never quite feel like you’re ready to take on the cost of the impending crash, and so you postpone it with more hits.
What’s that like with writing? Well… when I start writing again, after waiting months and months, I’m writing in fits and starts. I’m like an old water pipe that hasn’t been turned on in a while, and so I’m sputtering, and there’s dirt and gunk coming out before the good stuff happens. But at this point, I’ve written so much that I have faith that this is going to work out. I have a rhythm, I have a style, and lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to experiment – to use different words in novel ways to conjure new images. I don’t see a lot of people doing that. It seems to me like a lot of poets and writers are trying to fit into some existing model… and you don’t see a lot of people trying to be really experimental, to come up with new models. I’d like to do that.
Going back to the original train of thought that I started on here – I’m 27 years old. I’m going to be 28. My body of work is my body of work. It’s not as impressive as I wish it was. It’s not as epic as I wish it was. But I have an opportunity here, to be honest with myself, and to start again. I don’t have to start OVER, I just need to start again. And there are lots of lessons that I’ve learned, and lots of little hints and treats that I’ve buried for myself.
Past Visa wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t entirely absent, either – he made some efforts. He planted some seeds for me. He went out into the cold, without much knowledge, without much information, and I think he knew in his heart of hearts that he wasn’t going to make it. He didn’t obsess about me, but he did think about me. He wished me well. He hoped that I’d be better than him. And I am. And I say that with gratitude. Because as imperfect as Past Visa was, there aren’t many people who’ve given me as much as he’s given me. Arguably nobody.
And I don’t want to get into a pissing contest about that. I’m here now. I’m alive. I’m born. This is my moment. I may have inherited less-than-ideal circumstances, but I am more ideal than I was before. Maybe I’m sleepier, tireder, my skin is acting up when it didn’t before. But I can fix things. I’m going to fix things. I’m going to finish this word vomit, then I’m going to do some pushups, bathe and go to bed. And I’m going to wake up bright and early and fresh, and I’m going to write another vomit then. And then I’m going to have a good day at work.
And so I accept where I am. There are regrets. But so be it. My regrets shall not outnumber my dreams. I shall wear my regrets with a smile, not with resentment and anger and frustration. I forgive myself. I let go of resentment. I’m okay. I’m born in this moment. There is only this moment, everything else is an illusion, a fantasy, an attachment. I have to live with myself, and I can have a great relationship with myself. I don’t need to worry about what other people think about my relationship with myself.
I’m absolutely an adult now. Definitively. Comprehensively. I have the white hairs. I have the hospital visit. I have the bills, I have the house, I have the wife. But really it’s not about any of that. It’s about my relationship with myself. It’s about my self-concept. It’s about how I choose to treat young people. It’s about how I choose to refrain from needless conflict and agitation. And it’s about how I chose to forgive, to smile, to laugh.