Last year, when I turned 30, I wrote a blog post about how old and sad I felt. It was more for myself than anything else since I didn’t expect anyone to read it (and I’m not really expecting anyone to read this post either), but to my surprise I got a fair amount of feedback on Facebook. I appreciated everyone’s concern and good intentions, but no one told me anything I hadn’t already heard before. Really, there’s not much one can actually say in these kinds of situations to make anything better.
Since then, life has improved, if only just a little bit. Old pests went away, only to be replaced by new pests. My job got better before it got worse and then a little bit better again. I have gone out and seen more of Austin over the past month, in this narrow band of time in the year when it’s not too hot and not too cold. I’ve made a few trips to see other places outside of Austin as well. I’m still poor and unmotivated and plagued by a bunch of life problems that probably wouldn’t be present if I weren’t poor and unmotivated. Life still feels like a baseline of dull nothingness with some small pleasures here and there: seeing a good movie, eating a good dish, exploring a new place. I think about my past less and less and some of it is starting to be forgotten, but the changes the past has left on me are still here to stay.
I’m 31 years old now and I’m resigned to being in a not good place for some time. I’ve always had two selves in me and I’m stuck with the worse self for now. A part of me wants to do better but vague desire doesn’t go far. It’s not ambition, and I don’t have the will in me to act on it, especially not when I’m still treading water trying to keep my life together. I hate thinking about or hearing about possible plans for my future, because I know it’s just more difficulty and stress for possibly nothing. The most I can do right now is try to make my life a little bit better day by day so that I can keep improving down the road. Maybe one day I’ll reach a point where I have enough stability in my life that I can set my sights higher. But if nothing else, over the past two years I’ve learned how hard life can be, in a way that I never knew before, and not just for me, but for lots of other people in similar economic and financial and social and mental situations as I am.
maverickjh 