I broke my blog. In hindsight, I should have known why much sooner than I did. The good news is that I posted a few new themes, and I like this site design much more than the old one. One day I’ll spend some time on this. Until then I’ll just muse about random things on it.
Lately I’ve been shown some very interesting things. I’ve learned who in my life has grown with me, and who is standing back at 17 (or sometimes, unfortunately, younger) staring at me screaming, stomping their feet and wondering why things aren’t going their way. I’m not being selfish, here, either. I’m not bitter at people from whom I’ve grown away, but rather at people whose idea of growing up lacks any clauses that involve their expanding, taking root in new soil, or trying to be a bigger person. John Mayer’s Bigger Than My Body seems to ring true here. I wake up in the mornings and literally spend my waking hours trying to leave the carbon-based shell to which I am confined. Some days I succeed, and others, I fail miserably. But I try.
My mother told me a few months ago that she was “really surprised with me” over the past year, and that she’d seen a remarkable change, as the boy she raised and yelled at for eighteen years lived at college for two years before hiding in his cocoon and emerging as a man. One who was responsible, mature and who even offered to assist her with things in order to host company at holidays. One who didn’t avoid going home. One who has, for whatever reason, spoken to his parents more this year than last. That’s when I started thinking.
Thinking about the friends I had whose idea of a good time was waking up in a strange bed with a thumping headache. About those whose favorite class started at midnight on a Friday. About people who, even in High School, were numb to the things going on around them. I can attest to being one of those people. High School was a chore I did for my parents to validate their $10k/yr. purchase and ensure that they felt I was being a good boy. I came home and quickly resorted to wasting hours online using AIM, Myspace, Napster, KaZaA, Limewire and whatever else I could find to distract myself from life.
When I come home from work now, I usually relax for a little, whether that involves some video games in my cushy recliner, or lying in bed listening to music text messaging a few friends. Then I eat (or I don’t, which is a problem) and I go and sit on the computer and do something. Very rarely is that something talking for hours and hours. Anyone in my life can tell you that more often than not, I respond to their messages when I feel like it, not when they want me to. I’m reading Google Reader, or seeing if I can do something in jQuery, or reading some programming book. My life has turned into coding things at every possible chance, whether I’m in class, at work or relaxing at home.
And I am in love with this life that I lead.
The problem in my life at the moment is that I’m too in love with things. Complacency is taking hold. I’ve got a few projects to complete
- Hoboken Tech Repair
- Aunt Jackie’s Laptop
- Haircut One-Hundred
- jQuery Form Builder
- Freelance work with Chanh
but once those things are done (I hope by Christmas) I need to get out of this rut of just sitting and coding. I love it, but I’m feeling as though that’s just when you stop something. When I got tired of being a lemming, I asked myself “Do I actually believe that some guy rose from the dead and walked on water? No.” When I got tired of bands whose songs all sounded like everyone else’s, of uninspired lyricists singing along to uninspired guitarists with uninspired drummers backing them up, I was sure to keep my ears open and, like that fateful bag left under The Enemy’s bed in Almost Famous, music has set me free, to a place and time where computers didn’t exist. I’m not tired of code (For the sake of my nearly $200,000 education, I had better not be!) but I am tiring of the monotony of coding all the time.
People tell my that my job requires absolute resolve and focus to learn; not only things that I was taught, or things I wasn’t, but things that aren’t even real yet. Computers change too fast to really teach anyone anything. My life is the application of countless abstract ideas and tools at my disposal to solve problems for others in a friendly fashion. I adore my job and all it entails, but with this love of learning comes the realization that I made the jump necessary to leave my High School days and High School ways behind. I enjoy learning, sometimes even if I don’t like the subject. I like knowing things to know them, in a lot of instances. I try to read the news that pertains to my field, and some news that doesn’t, to keep myself well rounded.
And so I wonder who, of my friends from five years ago, does this? Who, of my friends from three years ago, does this?
I’ve always been satisfied with myself musically–it’s not until after the fact when I look back on my life and say “I listened to _that_?”–and I’ve always been proud of my drinking habits: a) I have still never been drunk, and b) I drink mostly water. But now is one of those times where I am just plain satisfied. I feel myself shedding my skin more often than I ever have; reigniting my passion for football, and the passion every child has to learn and know things. I’m excited about what the coming months and years will bring to me.
Academically. Professionally. In terms of my relationships.
It’s those relationships that have surprised me the most lately. As I see myself growing not personally, but through the eyes of others, I look around. And I wonder “are you keeping up?” In some cases, people are keeping up enough, or growing with me, such that this is a nonissue. Other times, I think back to relationships I once called a part of my being, and wonder why I was so surprised when things fell apart: sure, initially the cause seemed like growing apart, but it turns out that it was a matter of growing up. I can think of a few people specifically who always had this put-together façade. And now I sit here thinking about each situation, laughing at how ridiculous things are now, and do I feel badly? Yes, because the people I’m thinking of — mcd, reh, hav — are missing out on something great: Alex Bradley, New and Improved (Now 33% more for the same price).
Let me step off the pedestal you imagine me on right now by saying that I know I have so far to go; that the quest to be a better person doesn’t end. On your death bed, you think back and say “was it a good run?” You’d better hope the answer is yes. Or it will make saying goodbye to the lives you wish you could have touched more just a little bit harder. It is with this in mind that I am placing three simple goals on myself for 2010, and beginning to think and plan now.
- Read three non-computer related books in 2010: this may seem like a puny number, but consider it relative to the 0 books I’ve read in the last 5 years.
- Hit the gym three times a week: again, this may seem small. It’s when I feel the need to go daily that I screw things up and get lazy.
- Learn how to love foods you don’t love. I know my arteries will not make it to 40 if I continue to eat pork roll on a daily basis.
These activities will require a lot from me: time, mental effort, concentration, focus, money. There will be times and days when I will not want to do these things at all. Likely, these times will occur more often than the times I actually want to do these things. But am I confident?
Yes.
Why, you might ask? I have good people around me. The traitors are behind me. And, one person in particular, on whom I can always count, is going to be there for me always.
Since March of 2005 my life has always had some degree of this person in it. She has helped me through very dark times, helped me to see who I really am, and look into the future to see where I was going. Think Lakutu in Mario Kart: he’ll tell you if you’re going the wrong way. The best/worst part about Lakutu is that even if you’re trying to right yourself, but still not there, he will relentlessly tell you. This 180 degree, no grey-area attitude is also shared by this person in my life. She expects the best from me and has always demanded it. If I don’t give it to her, things are simple. She leaves until I tell her I can, and when I do that, she scolds me for making her leave. Do I argue it? Yes. Do I deserve it? Hell Yes.
This person questions the little things in my life and keeps me on track due to it. She’s a huge cheerleader of mine, even when no one else is. She objectively helps me when I come to her for advice. And most importantly, lately she’s shown me something I never felt was there: that she was here for the long haul. No matter how volatile our relationship seems, with minimal effort and good intentions, it’ll always be there for me (like Stewie promises for Brian in The Untold Story of Stewie Griffin). This has come as somewhat of a surprise due to my inability to understand just where I sit with this person. I am never met with resistance from her because I am not doing things her way. I am met with resistance from her because I’m not doing them my way. The truer I am to myself, the better off she and I are, and I will never get enough relationships like this.
She and I have never had it easy. Our relationship was short-lived and rocky would be a kind word to describe it. The rocks in our relationship were all introduced by me, and I still have trouble coming to terms with how difficult it must have been to listen to me defend myself angrily over things which were, at the time, so cruel. I reserve some sliver of my heart always for the girl in question, whose love for me will never fully vanish in some way, and who will always care for me, what’s best in my life, and who will never fail to be there for me in my toughest times, and accept me and forgive me even when I am, for lack of better words, a “douchebag”.
Thank you, Sada. For being just the person I need, and a tried-and-true best friend for about four and a half years now. My life is happier when you and I are on good terms, and I hope to, with your help, continue on my path to becoming a better person. As always, Hue and Mer.
Now, nearly 2000 words later and with much less on my chest than before, I think it’s time to put my twitter feed in the sidebar over here. :)