It’s time for the post we’ve been hotly anticipating… a quarter of a century on the third rock from the sun and it is now for me to talk through 25 things i have in my head for the 25th anniversary of being birthed!

1. It’s difficult to quantify the amount of time I have spent in bed just staring at my wall,,, but it’s for sure a significant percentage of my life time.
2. I have no consistent outfit aesthetic and I think that’s neat. One day I will look like straight indie trash, and the other the preppy jock type.
3. There was a total eclipse today (I missed it, and I was not in the path of totality) and I do wonder what kind astrological implications that has for one being on my birthday (this is also fishing to the astrology girlies to woman-splain this to me)
4. I am a certified, licensed yapper if given the right set of circumstances. I yap to myself, frequently (to replace human connection)
5. I am approaching an IBS diagnosis and it frightens me
6. I am going to become the greatest advocate for third spaces. No more having to pay to hang out, we will all hang out at the park, I promise!
7. I am learning Japanese in anticipation of a trip to Japan, and I have since learned that the Japanese will make fun of you for doing this,,, which is really cool.
8. Trip planning is all fun and games until you find out how much a flight costs.
9. I have not done Karaoke since the summer and that needs to be rectified immediately!!! (my go to being Burn – Usher)
10. I have been doing Muay Thai classes and I get beat up pretty frequently during drills, but it’s fun to be in an environment where you aren’t good and are encouraged to get better (this is me just soft-launching my improv class era).
11. I have been thinking of creating content for Twitch or Youtube for a long while, but I have the emotional fragility of a hamster (aka I will die if you scare me).
12. Lowkey, if you have been in a single romantic relationship since high school you deserve to be divorced and single (I am kidding, I am begrudgingly happy for you).
13. Whoever thought Austin Butler would take a fantastic turn as Feyd-Rautha in Dune? I’ve seen that Elvis rehearsal clip. I was not prepared for his greatness.
14. Social media has provided me the worst brainrot ever, and yet I cannot leave. I like my friends too much!
15. I have reached a nirvana point with my day job, and it’s fun to do the things that I do… my silly little tasks are great!
16. I have been reading bell hooks and… it’s… we need more writing like this I think.
17. I have been very enamored with poetry and short story form lately, I think it provides me a lot of closure that I need when I am writing in short spurts.
18. I think love and hope is the strongest force we have collectively as a society, and the fact that people are so selfish upsets me a fair bit. Christopher Nolan was cooking with Interstellar!
19. I have more than a few people in my life that I love and hope the best for, but that I would dislike spending another minute with.
20. Despite me being single for years now, I have more confidence in who I am now than I ever did when I was dating (which isn’t saying much since I last dated someone in high school).
21. I have a lot of executive dysfunction issues, and it makes me push things off, but I have lived this long, so whose to say it won’t get better? (I have been flying by the seat of my pants for literal years now,,, help).
22. If I could Super Mario 64 my ass into a painting and see what lies in there, it would honestly be a Rothko or something similarly abstract. I want to see how that is interpreted.
23. AI still scares me even though I have more or less accepted it in my life… I just don’t like that my metaphorical yapping through the computer can be replaced by an AI.
24. I want to retire early. So catch me working hard until I can!
25. It is a privilege to live the life that I do, on the same Earth as some really quality beings. And yeah… I get pissy and weird about my life sometimes (and the people in it). But I have a genuine wish for everyone out there to live the life you want to live. I have no enemies. And I hope I’ve expressed that thoroughly to people (nobody reads this).

I am soon to turn 25. I want to save my “25 lessons for 25 years” post for the actual day. No today, I want to make some reflections. I watched a movie today called Problemista written, directed, and starring Julio Torres. One of the things that kind of stuck in my craw was making mistakes. I’ve been having a lot of conversations with my therapist lately revolving around the idea of perfection. I know I’m human, I know I can make mistakes, yet when they happen, I feel devastated and can’t recover quick enough it seems.

I’ve made a few mistakes recently. Some that I know were due to me being a bit off from center socially. I’ve been depressed for a good long while. Lovesick, most likely. But that depressed energy lingers. It lingers when I talk to people. It makes me act out of sorts. And I feel weird about being myself. I have such massive insecurity in my own self, that it has bled into the fabric of myself. It flashes me back to my past. I was in high school, I was in college, I am in my career, yet it comes back. That feeling. That feeling that I am not good enough. For some reason, I can’t kick it. It’s cyclical.

I’ve felt like the friends I have don’t like me anymore. It’s part of why I hate making friends. I always feel like I push them away, just to see what would happen. And when I need them most, they’re gone… because I did it. I am trying to get better at being less like that… but I just can’t.

Problemista deals somewhat about the idea of making mistakes. Mistakes are not worthy of losing a job over, losing citizenship for, nor are they worthy of losing friendships for. And that’s where I’m at. I made a mistake and now I am being punished for it. I’ve haven’t felt this hopeless in a long while. But it’s happened before. I want to prevent it from happening, but it feels like I am lock stepped. Like destiny is pushing me toward this fate. Toward being lonely. But I know that’s not true. I am pushing every single day to battle my “fate”. I know I will do it, I am just stuck here in this middle ground. Between being what I want to be, and away from what I used to be. It doesn’t prevent this feeling though. This feeling that I messed up and can never recover. I will recover… I just have to.

I am depressed. I probably should have led with that. I am so depressed that most days, I see no point in getting out of bed. I also work a full-time job. So… not getting out of bed, being a full-time job haver, and with a good family, you would think good things, right? Wrong. I am still depressed.

Depression isn’t just feeling sad all of the time (although some days it’s how I feel), it’s the absence of light. The absence of positivity. It’s like looking into the cauldron of the good life you seek, and being unable to fathom it. Things are barely out of reach. In view, mocking you.

I have friends. But they all went sour on me. Probably because I am such a negative influence, people can feel it. Like when the debbie downer shows up at the party. You just feel the vibes of the night die. That’s me, baby. I am the one who brings down the vibes. I don’t talk to people. I wish I could. They try to talk to me, but I either ignore it, or kill the conversation through my blunders. I am not dating. I am single. I wish I wasn’t. But no person in their right mind will be willing to date me. At least, they shouldn’t. I have a variety of health issues, I’m overweight, and no person is willing to be with me for fear that I will just kill their lives in simple swoop.

Why should I have led with my depression? After all, people say “put your best foot forward” or “make a good first impression”. Because I haven’t been honest about it. Honesty is the best policy. And I haven’t been honest. So for one last time, let me say it here:

I am depressed.

I have decided on writing again. Something that is long overdue in my opinion. I have regretted going away from writing, trying to become someone I am not, “improving myself”. But it hasn’t worked.

2023 was one of the years of all time. I came into it thinking I would blossom into a new man. Someone to be proud of. I am more proud of myself going into 2024 in the sense that I have become a lot more open to pain. Something that I felt like I had been ignoring in the past years of my life. I just… I thought that it being the year of the rabbit (my year), things would have been different. I got knocked off my pedestal. Humbled as the kids would say. I want to say that it was someone else’s fault. That’d be the easy way out. But it wasn’t. I didn’t do the things I wanted to. I also neglected the opportunities that were presented to me. It was just a struggle year for me.

I caught feelings >:((( and didn’t resolve it. Just add it to the pile of regrets of my life. I didn’t make the friends I wanted to. I also am further away from satisfying my dream of leaving Arizona.

I did do good things though. I travelled, and found a passion in it. I have become a lot better at my job. I am also more confident in leaving my current employment with proper experience. I got closer to the friends that I have. I am truly appreciative for them. I also finally got out of the vice grip that is social media. I still check things from time-to-time and procrastinate quite a bit, but at least it isn’t on Instagram reels lol.

Going into 2024. I have accepted that things may not change. It is okay. Perhaps 2023 was a year of shifts and change. It’s just upsetting. Outside of 2022, every year since 2016 has been a whirlwind. Something changes, something goes awry, and something ends. My happiness has been lower than ever realizing that just ahead of me, there are no milestones that are preprogrammed for me. I have to make my milestones. I have to create my destiny. That’s so fucking scary, dude.

But who knows. I hope things will change, but expect them to not. It’s how I’m built, I guess.

There was a moment in Rome I can’t get out of my head for whatever reason. It has been hardwired into my brain… a core memory if you will. On a city bike trip through the historic streets of Rome, I was riding along this back stretch of street on the way over to the Vatican City. No cars, no people, just a quiet Roman street where people live. It was around 6:00 PM, the golden hour. There was breeze in my jacket as Rome was beginning to warm-up after spring, still cold at night but warm during the day. I looked at the sun waning away from view, the light just hitting the buildings at the right place. I was standing on my pedals like when I was a kid biking around. Going so fast, probably too fast. I look behind me and normally my family would follow right after me, but in this moment they were out of view. In front of me, the two people who went on this ride with us and the guide were gone as well. The only sound I heard was of the gears of my bike changing ever so slightly like winding a toy soldier for Christmas. The bike tires glided along the cobblestone streets. For the first time since I ever knew what my memories were like, I felt free. Unchained. Like I finally transcended.

I always thought that my life would be a bit different. I worry a lot about the paths I could have taken (and maybe should have). I have mad anxiety about everything, a serial overworrier, since I was just a child. But that moment, that slight moment of freedom is what we all search for. To no longer be beholden, to be held back, to be free.

I wanted to write this down because I need to remind myself that this is what I seek. And for my therapist.

Where do we begin. I am 24. No longer beating the mid-20’s allegations. I’ll be 100% honest in that it does not bother me. I am very painfully aware that your life can slip away from you, especially since I am in a job that all but encourages it. Living for the weekend, am I right????????????????????????? So, I want to kind of get my head around this. Thus, I present 24 thoughts on my mind for my 24th birthday:

1. I sometimes wonder what the meaning of midlife crisis is, and then it’ll be a Wednesday in my 11 AM meeting when it hits me.
2. I consistently think of this Spongebob quote from Squidward: “Here’s how things work: I order the food, you cook the food, and the customer gets the food. We do this for 40 years, and then we die.”
3. I haven’t gotten a formal diagnosis, but I for sure have IBS.
4. What does being “deep” mean? I feel like that covers the breadth from what our purpose in life is to if Fortnite is a good game or not. I just hate the word now lmao.
5. Networking is stupid. Stop trying to “business-ify” everything. You’re making friends/acquaintances like a human being would. Not building a “web of connections”.
6. LinkedIn influencers: I have a thinly-veiled dislike toward you… but I respect the hustle.
7. If I were not doing what I am doing now, I wouldn’t be doing anything. And that saddens me a bit.
8. I am very thankful my parents seemed to have escaped generational trauma. Or at the very least stopped perpetuating the cycle.
9. I stopped watching movies like I used to. And I am unsure how I feel about that.
10. I’ve wanted to speak another language for years. But I just cannot get myself to pay for the programs to do it.
11. I am for sure going to date someone who will “soft-launch” me to their friends/social media. And that makes me a bit mad.
12. I stopped thinking about dating. Like seriously, it feels very useless.
13. I want to get better at art.
14. I would like to learn how to properly sing.
15. Karaoke is the only time I feel transcendent (well that and when I get blackout drunk).
16. I buy things knowing very well that they are a waste of money. Who gives a shit.
17. I grow up and I realize… high school has no bearing on your future self. And it almost pisses me off that so much emphasis was placed on it.
18. I live in a lot of privilege and with shelter, and I have not a single regret on that. Sorry.
19. I am teetering on whether it is ethical to raise kids knowing where our future may end up.
20. I’ve stopped caring if someone thinks I am a good person or not, or if someone likes me or not. Cause I like me, and that’s all that matters.
21. The very fact that an AI can write this and totally replace my art form scares me to no end.
22. Men need to stop caring about how they present. Cause at the end of the day… who cares.
23. While I care about my weight and health, I couldn’t really give less of a shit about someone else’s. Live your life, don’t let me stop you.
24. This list sucks ass.

It’s been…

Okay so, I didn’t mean for it to get this far. But I kinda just got very busy and unmotivated. So, what are we going to do about this? Well, I am trying to stockpile posts and such in the drafts. But the biggest thing to me is to finally admit to myself that an every day blog is mighty unsustainable. So I am going to not do that. But I am keeping that pressure on myself to write. Writing is something that centers me and allows me to freely express myself. It is my artform. But I keep having this stupid fucking malformed idea that I need to make something of it. That I need to create value from it. There is no inherent value. I have only dropped the link for this blog once in the past month. And that was on a private twitter account with only 18 followers.

I am needing to understand how to be a better, more rounded individual. I need to figure it out. But I keep learning lessons that aren’t sticking for whatever reason. But I still am somewhat happy. That’s where I’m finding this… I guess inflection point. I am still lucid, having a blast, but there is a tinge of depression. I think I need to catch it now before it gets truly awful.

Anyway peepee poopoo!!!!!111!!!!11!!!