It’s been probably over a year and some change since my last post. I honestly forget sometimes that this is where I started. In my college apartment in Greensboro, Is Anyone Really Listening? was born. The question still remains but I realized that I knew the answer all along.
Yes people were listening but was I listening to myself? No.
A lot can happen in a year and some change but I won’t dive too much into that. It’s still a work in progress so we’ve got a lot of growing to do. What hasn’t changed is my love for writing and how in all of this, I always come back to this. I always come back home. Writing was an escape for me. It always has been. I have journals on journals of diary entries that captured some of the best and worst moments of my life. This blog is the digital form of that. Hell, I even wrote about what I learned from being cheated on.
In this writing block, things were safe. The noise is gone as it is now, at 3:30 AM on September 3rd. Everything is quiet and I am here with whoever is or isn’t reading this. I cared way too much about the success of this blog that I stopped falling in love with the writing and the process. That principle is true in other areas of my life. You can love something so much you lose yourself in it.
But I’m coming back, slowly. Maybe I am stumbling my way into it but like I said before, this is where the world makes the most sense to me. This is where I get to share my thoughts with an arbitrary audience or just put out my thoughts into the universe hoping that anyone who is listening gains something from it. And if they don’t? Well, then this blog is completely self-serving and screw whoever isn’t listening. I kid, I kid.
I keep saying “oh I don’t know who I am…”, “i don’t know what i’m doing…”, “i don’t know how i got here…” but to some extent, I do. I know who I am to other people. I know the role I play. I know the positions I hold. But do I know who I mean to myself? No and that won’t get solved in a matter of hours or days but it’s the journey of it all. This time of my life, my early 20’s sucks. I honestly hate it because it’s uncomfortable, hard, but also rewarding. The entire timeframe I am confused but also have some sense of direction. The inner compass in me has a general idea of where it’s pointing but the direction is way off sometimes. I honestly feel like a lot of people experience this but no one ever tells you how to navigate it.
It’s so easy to say. “Go live your life, be selfish, fall in love, fall out of love, save money, YOLO and spend it”. There are all these doctrines and books of how someone in their early 20’s should live so does anyone know what they’re really doing? I don’t think so. I think we are all figuring it out as we go. Sometimes we are great people. Sometimes we are really shitty to those we care about. I’ve been in both seats. It’s trial and error. Lately, there’s been some trial and lots of error.
“Oh that’s okay…”. No it isn’t. Sometimes your errors can affect other people in a way that isn’t okay. The blanket statement to pacify your own ego isn’t doing anyone any good. It’s really about facing it and forcing yourself to do it. Sure, ego and pride will be there but at least you’re facing it. That’s the first step: face the shit you caused. Then work to fix it. Don’t expect it to be perfect but just do it, like Nike.
I think that your early 20’s can be great and they can really suck. I always wonder if I am perceiving it as being so dysfunctional or if everyone else’s experience is a breeze. I can’t be the only one, right? I know I’m not because I’ve had difficult conversations with friends and people and everyone has the same feeling towards it but HOW DO YOU GET THROUGH IT? I guess the latter: you just do it, like Nike.
Anyway, this odd spiritual awakening to resurrect my blog at 3:30AM on a Thursday is no coincidence. This is my way of coming back home to myself. This is me reminding myself of what I used to love and refuge to when things got really hard.
Here there are no rules. No restrictions. It’s free, and no one cares.
Is Anyone Really Listening? 