My
situation is FAR from unique… I soon leave for the next chapter, the next act,
the sequel for which my publisher won’t have to ask. As such, I must wrap up
the lines, crossing T’s and dotting I’s, before the spine will be glued and the
kindle version synthesized. My life story does not begin with the where was I born and the who did I know, but the: what did I learn and why did it matter.
I find
myself at a crossroads; street lamps absent. An invisible line extending ad
infinitum to my left and my right, despite my brights and headlights, my
foresight relays nothing. My shoe
meets mud, I’ve equipped myself with a wind-up flashlight, the grinding charge
winding whining a soundtrack to my twilight trudge. Over my shoulder I hear
memories, interpretations, hyperinflations of past situations; memories, and
memories of memories indistinguishable, extinguished with reminiscence and lack
of replication.
My past and
present memories flicker and fade from me; buy, sell, and trading facts and
fiction for free.
Left arm
forward I step, the perpendicular plane parallel to my palm, reading life lines
and tragedies passing data to prophets and IDs. As I reach the boundary my
fingerprints meet solid, like a mime I stand hand to an invisible wall,
seemingly stationary. As I wait, I find it moves forward both quickly and
slowly. The chronological wall moves logical to the accelerations and stalls of
each moment. Weeks pass like days and days pass like weeks.
In America
we consider looking behind us the past, and looking forward, the future. There’s
a culture somewhere, I forget where exactly, that considers the future to be
behind oneself, and the past to be within one’s gaze, since we can see the past
clearly. The wall adopts the shroud of the future, my past and present
preceding its motions.
Six years
have passed since I last wrapped up classes and wore a cap and gown, I’ve found
love, friends, I’ve worn out dreams, I’ve created sounds, I’ve driven for hours
passing corn rows over dirt roads, dusty hubcaps emoting my silent excitement
for novelty. My beliefs fluctuate, reliant on science waiting hours before the
powers of gravity remind and mediate my existential opinion. Sex, drugs, Bach
and Beethoven, my experiences lay open, every page accessible, some dog-eared
in ALL CAPS and others small-fonted and barely legible. Just ask, and I can
read you a page.
So, I’ve
attempted and feigned adulthood for half a decade… what have I learned?
1. You
train others how to treat you (and vice versa)
2. Life is
Balance-
Everything
in life follows a sin wave, of a sort. The stock market, freedom, weight gain
and loss, productivity – the NEED to grow inspires our greatest growth; achieving our goals often begins the downward slope of negligence.
And on that
note:
3. Shit
happens, and it’s a damn good thing it does.
The
greatest growth I have made as a human being has commenced subsequent to or
concurrent with painful situations. Moments of fuckery, tumultuous
relationships, major academic rerouting- Do you think it hurts when a
caterpillar becomes a butterfly? Metamorphosis happens to all of us, the cocoon
is intangible. Life experience forms the chrysalis in which we become future-us…
we never emerge, we are a constant insect trifecta– caterpillar, chrysalis, and
butterfly all at once.
4. How you
treat your body affects EVERYTHING.
From mood,
to sex, to how likely you are to get an A on a test… what you put in your body,
how much you sleep, how much you exercise, and how much you take the reins and
have control over keeping these balanced– this will strongly dictate many
facets of your being. I’ve gotten to the point that, if I’m feeling badly, I
run through the list: Do I have a legitimate reason to feel this way? If not, what
have I been eating? Have I been working out? Sleeping? It’s not perfect, but it
explains a lot.
5. For many
women, chocolate is more than just a sweet: it’s a solution.
6. Besides
being in a loud environment, there is no good reason to raise your voice
If you’re
trying to communicate how you feel, and want someone else to respond well…
There is a very small chance saying it loudly will defend your argument. As
soon as you lose your cool, YOU are now the biggest obstacle between your point
and mutual understanding.
7. Never
take anything personally.
Never. Take. Anything. Personally.
It’s hard.
You can
never know where people are coming from. It is naïve to think that your
interpretation of the sights, smells, sounds, and valences of your surroundings
is the ONLY way and/or the RIGHT way to see things. Whatever someone expresses,
whether it is love, pain, disgust... It is the trickle of life experience
through the filter of their current state. If someone tells me I’m an idiot,
I’m ugly, and I won’t go anywhere with my life… That’s fine. To them, at that
moment, it is true, and that’s totally okay. It is human to feel hurt about
things outside of our control, but human does not mean smart or logical. We can
choose to evolve our reactions, involving understanding as the catalyst in the
interpretation.
8. There
are three types of criticism:
The kind
you agree with,
The kind
you disagree with,
and the
kind you don’t want to agree with.
Lastly:
9. It’s all
going to work out.
I don’t
believe in destiny, I don’t believe in things happening for a reason. However, just
as life is balance, and shit happens, we are BUILT to ADAPT. No matter how hard
things get–You are going to figure out a way to make it work. In my undergraduate, I got denied from
the music composition program TWICE… and went into music therapy. Now, I’m off
to an internship, conducting research, writing for national blogs and
presenting at conferences… and guess what? I’ve been FAR more successful as a
composer since I’ve left the program. I actually thanked the head of the
composition program for denying my access to the professional sequence.
No matter
how bad things get, there’s a pretty good chance you’re not going to throw your
hands up and go, “Well, fuck it” and just curl up and wait til you die.
Hands up
against the wall, I try and look through it’s invisible cracks, attempting a
sneak peak at my future. Static predictions lay like pictures, graffiti always
changing, paint flaking where journeys have ended, and aerosol cans laying
where plans are in the making. I sit with my back against the wall, my life
covering the expanse between myself and the horizon. I’m equally nervous and
excited for each inch the wall moves, slowly laying me down as it inches and flies
forward.
