It is a fresh new year. Four days into the new year and I'm daring to do something new. I'm trying to find a way to live.
I keep saying this so that once it finally happens it probably won't hit me with the great shock that it's been, but I'll be Forty this year. Forty years old... It wasn't that long ago I was planning to go out with friends and have a fun time News Years eve. Now I stay home. I'd plan fun Karaoke get togethers with groups of people so we could all laugh and smile. Now I wallow in my apartment and live life through the blue and white screen of Facebook.
I make long and drawn out posts inviting friends to comment with the hope that I have at least some human connection. A few years back, I was surrounded by my best friends. Every day was a coffee day surrounded by people who I loved and adored. Every day was a joy over iced white mochas and homework. Graduating college stripped me of all of it.
Life after college graduation has proven a few things to me. Education IS NOT the doorway to happiness that current politics, conservative rhetoric, or liberal hope seems to think it is. I have an Associates degree... For an entry level position now, current employers require; At least five years ALREADY EARNED experience AND a Bachelors Degree for a position that just a few years earlier only required a high school diploma.
College graduation and transitioning into adult life has shown me that, once again, grown up life sucks rocks... We work our lives away. We work 50 hour work weeks now just to make ends meet, pay bills, and go home to watch TV. We communicate through Text, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. But gone are the days of group laughter around a coffee table. We don't have time for it.
And people wonder why we have issues with depression?
Here's where I am resolving to change things.
I'm stuck in this "talk about it on Facebook" or "talk about it on my Blog" life because I'm terrified and saddened by life. I'm too scared to live without it. I've spent now two and a half years living my life by typing it out on Facebook or Blogging about it. Sure, it has indeed offered me some small measure of "therapy". It's also I think alienated a lot of people from wanting to talk with me in real life.
I want that to end. I want to live a real life.
What that looks like, I'm still figuring it out.
I know it has to be the opposite of what I've been doing.
I wake up, check Facebook, go to work, check Facebook, go to work, check e-mail (fear the possible E-mail from one of three toxic ex-girlfriends), check Facebook, Shower from a days labor, go home, spend the night on Facebook.
I am not interacting with people... I am interacting with a white screen like some strange Videodrome mess.
I'm making it a point to make a key change in my life. I'm going to live in a human world, a world where I interact with flesh and blood people. Not through my phone, but face to face. I'm going to stop fearing leaving these four walls.
Why am I afraid? I'm afraid of running into "the toxic ex".
I'm afraid of running into the abusive ex.
I'm afraid of running into the abusive exes parents.
I'm afraid of going out somewhere new alone and not being able to talk to someone.
For a guy who can sing and speak and crack jokes through a microphone, there is a patent Irony to this.
(I can does ALLL the Imrov!)
I don't want to be afraid anymore. I don't want to care what anyone thinks of me.
If I am apply the Improv principle here, I need to:
Embrace that I am a fat Goth boy in leathers, and that not everyone gets that.
Embrace the fact that I am often socially awkward when I don't have a microphone.
Use the fear that I have of facing life and springboard from it.
And take the Yes/And approach. YES, I am stepping out into the world AND I will roll with whatever happens.
So tomorrow, is a new work day. A new day to make things fun. In the background I hear my old ComedySportz referee with his wistle; "Alright Bill, your scene is; You just woke up and are about to to go to work polishing wheels. FREEZE! Do it with Kung Fu Overdub!"
Let's see how it goes.
No fear, no regrets, LIVE.
Music in my head:
Are you Ready (On your own) by Distant Cousins
If you are familiar with the film "This is where I leave you", this is an amazing climatic song of facing fear despite tragedy.
I'm making this my mantra and my theme song for 2015.
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