Take a goo-ood look at my face,
You'll see my smiiile looks out of place...
Tonight's the big night, going to the Tombs as a 21-year-old man. 21 years, man. Don't they go by in a blink?
No, actually...I don't feel like I've blazed a fiery path to this point in my life. Did anyone else feel that way? I don't feel like the last 21 years (or like 17 if you want to talk REAL awareness of oneself) have slipped through my fingers, though I have noticed an exponential increase in time elapsed as the years march on. However, even as time slips away ("and leaves you with nothin', mister"), I've noticed that the distance between where I am now and whatever was the last chapter of my life (Kate and I used to refer to the many years within a year) feels broader every go-round. Living in Village A, for instance, seems like a story I could tell now, when it was less than two months ago. Winter's Tale feels like two such seasons have passed since. Much Ado and its attendant situations have acquired the smirking humility I often attribute to high school.
How does this happen? I feel like this could be something unique to me due simply to my ability to become enveloped in the current chapter of life. No matter how much agency I may shirk in the daily goings-on of myself, I definitely frame my world around the current situation.
Pangs suck.
They have very little work for me again, today, and so I'm here, trying to piece things together. I''m turning 21 tomorrow. It's like getting your college acceptance letter. There should be something here. Remember the somewhat shocking silence of the moment that you knew you'd be going to college? There was nothing to it, just something that hadn't been suddenly was and nothing really changed around you, except perhaps a pursuant influx of school colors and flags and hats and shirts, which seem to be desperately addressing that need for some sort of visible shift in one's current life.
Well, I now have a project, and as I am being paid, my conscience is going to make me work for it.
Later y'all.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
You know all those posts on this blog where I'd bitch and moan and rant and rave and beat myself down and pull myself up again and then shrug it off and say "That's all"? I stopped doing those a while ago, because I felt like that's all the blog was, especially when Tom told someone that "You should stop by Ian's blog some time, it's like Ian Hates the World. " Now, though, I understand a lot better why I used to do that.
I needed it.
I have gotten to a point in my life where, when I'm unhappy, or stressed more like, and then I get moody, I get down on myself for being moody. Then I get down on myself for being down on myself again. Then I go talk to someone about it, because at least I finally have started doing THAT, but then I get down on myself for talking so much about my problems. Then, once again, I have to chastise the chastising. It goes and goes and I don't know if it stops so much as attention shifts to some new kernel of the whole thing.
Today, for the first time, while I was in my head during my commute, banging on myself because I couldn't let go of thoughts I was having, I heard something completely new from within. I distinctly heard a "Please, stop, no more." I had said it, thought it rather, and there it was. Now, jokes or perhaps concerns about voices in my head aside, I don't know if my reaction to the beating I give myself has ever been anything except for more beatings, but apparently the silent martyr of ego that took all the beatings I've dealt out since I first recognized it couldn't quite take much more.
So when it falls between laying into myself until I beg for mercy and lashing out into a little posting box on the blog, I say let's have a renaissance of Ian Hates the World, because I am NOT laying another hand on me. No more beatings, just lightly trying to figure stuff out.
That being said...
I have trouble existing alone and in the present. I realized the other day that I have a bizarre relationship with mirrors. It's like I check to be sure that I look alright in my clothes and gauge the state of the feral wildthing that is my hair, but I rarely register that what I see is the external packaging of the consciousness I ride out day to day. The other day, when the crowd I went to dinner with all went to a show that I didn't have a ticket to, I walked back to my house and spent more time alone than I had in a long, long time.
Who's surprised in the audience? Anybody? (Ooh, I've missed these little blog shoutouts...) Of course I have trouble. How public am I, right? I love people, I love crowds, I love laughter and parties (that I'm not hosting, mind you) and I love love love my friends. So yes, I spend a lot of time extroverted, despite my capacity for thought. Maybe I need to think more about me, though, nonetheless.
It's amazing, I've known about this problem for a week or so and my first response was to rattle off the me-ness of me: the job, the house, my mom, my friends, the A Kids, my majors, the shows I've been in. But like any resume, the ability of all that to actually tell someone about me is laughable. But this, this blog, without me trying to list everything singular and not invested in someone else, has made me feel better already. I haven't come to much, but that's ok. It's high time I stop seeing my long pensive sessions as a formula with an end result of peace of mind. When I look at the happiest moments of my life, I realize that, at the time, I didn't give them much thought.
Why is this so important to me? Because lately my inability to be alone with me and to see myself as the main character in my own life rather than the funny neighbor in everyone else's, has caused me to strain things in a few relationships. Those two things are somehow related, I'm sure. Then again, I've also done a lot more selfish stuff lately (that's Ayn Rand's selfish for those of you keeping score), trying to keep an eye on what I want and on how important those things I want are in relation to the people around me.
Well, seeing as I just got paid for writing that...I should go.
That's all......it's good to be back.
I needed it.
I have gotten to a point in my life where, when I'm unhappy, or stressed more like, and then I get moody, I get down on myself for being moody. Then I get down on myself for being down on myself again. Then I go talk to someone about it, because at least I finally have started doing THAT, but then I get down on myself for talking so much about my problems. Then, once again, I have to chastise the chastising. It goes and goes and I don't know if it stops so much as attention shifts to some new kernel of the whole thing.
Today, for the first time, while I was in my head during my commute, banging on myself because I couldn't let go of thoughts I was having, I heard something completely new from within. I distinctly heard a "Please, stop, no more." I had said it, thought it rather, and there it was. Now, jokes or perhaps concerns about voices in my head aside, I don't know if my reaction to the beating I give myself has ever been anything except for more beatings, but apparently the silent martyr of ego that took all the beatings I've dealt out since I first recognized it couldn't quite take much more.
So when it falls between laying into myself until I beg for mercy and lashing out into a little posting box on the blog, I say let's have a renaissance of Ian Hates the World, because I am NOT laying another hand on me. No more beatings, just lightly trying to figure stuff out.
That being said...
I have trouble existing alone and in the present. I realized the other day that I have a bizarre relationship with mirrors. It's like I check to be sure that I look alright in my clothes and gauge the state of the feral wildthing that is my hair, but I rarely register that what I see is the external packaging of the consciousness I ride out day to day. The other day, when the crowd I went to dinner with all went to a show that I didn't have a ticket to, I walked back to my house and spent more time alone than I had in a long, long time.
Who's surprised in the audience? Anybody? (Ooh, I've missed these little blog shoutouts...) Of course I have trouble. How public am I, right? I love people, I love crowds, I love laughter and parties (that I'm not hosting, mind you) and I love love love my friends. So yes, I spend a lot of time extroverted, despite my capacity for thought. Maybe I need to think more about me, though, nonetheless.
It's amazing, I've known about this problem for a week or so and my first response was to rattle off the me-ness of me: the job, the house, my mom, my friends, the A Kids, my majors, the shows I've been in. But like any resume, the ability of all that to actually tell someone about me is laughable. But this, this blog, without me trying to list everything singular and not invested in someone else, has made me feel better already. I haven't come to much, but that's ok. It's high time I stop seeing my long pensive sessions as a formula with an end result of peace of mind. When I look at the happiest moments of my life, I realize that, at the time, I didn't give them much thought.
Why is this so important to me? Because lately my inability to be alone with me and to see myself as the main character in my own life rather than the funny neighbor in everyone else's, has caused me to strain things in a few relationships. Those two things are somehow related, I'm sure. Then again, I've also done a lot more selfish stuff lately (that's Ayn Rand's selfish for those of you keeping score), trying to keep an eye on what I want and on how important those things I want are in relation to the people around me.
Well, seeing as I just got paid for writing that...I should go.
That's all......it's good to be back.