Adultolescense

“I just can’t believe how clean it is!”

Lizzy and I were taking my new (old) Prius for a spin. It’s a 2005, but compared to the old CRV, it feels like a 2050. Touch screen, headlights that actually illuminate the road, a horn that doesn’t sound like a dying duck.

I feel like she can hear me smiling, the car drives so quietly. I know my old car operated like an asthmatic rhinoceros with casts on each foot clunking over every bump, but the car just whispers as it moves. I’ve always thought Priuses sounded like some sort of high-tech dishwasher, quietly whirring away, unclear whether it’s washing, drying, or both. Now I feel like it sounds like Luke’s X-Wing powering up.

“What will your friends think?”

Immediately I think of my friends from high school, who derisively questioned my gender by even owning a Subaru. A Prius to would mean the final castration in their eyes.

“We should take a photo of you next to it. Like, wearing a suit or something. Caption: ‘I own both these things– a clean suit, and a clean new car.”

That’s when I knew she was talking about my college friends.

——

“Dear Mr. King, I don’t know if you are into looking at Facebook’s memories section, but I’m here to tell you that our banter circa Spring 2011 was pure gold. Anyway, hope all is well with you!”

I smiled when I saw this. This individual drunkenly introduced me to the phrasing “vom dot com,” and a bunch of other ridiculous ways to say pretty mundane things, and I remember most of the discourse throughout our friendship being some variation of “totes awkward pants” and “that was awesome sauce town city,” or some similar nonsense.

I clicked on “See Friendship,” and scrolled through most of our exchanges, which, as expected, was a lot of that.

Then I got to one post, where I drunkenly described my evening, tried to insult Cam's crotchal region, and managed to hit on/creep out her roommates even 10,000 miles away.

I like to think that Australia was a special case. That aside from that 6-month period, I never blacked out, or got naked, or yelled belligerently at friends… But unfortunately, I know that’s not the case, and I only wish there weren’t as many nights when they happened all at once.

I like to think that, even if it wasn’t just in Australia, it was at least limited to college. That aside from my first time visiting vom.com as a 20 year old, through 2.5 years later to graduation, I have been a pretty healthy person. But, it didn’t end after graduation, and it wasn’t limited to SLU. Accounts of me blackmailing the 11-year old sibling of one of my friends during a summer break (for whom I had served as a substitute teacher at the Elementary School just a month or so earlier) who saw me drunk, still haunt me to this day. As do blurry memories of my bike veering across an empty road with a backpack full of wine bottles, suddenly tumbling over the sidewalk, and waking up in my bed, bloody, sore, and smelling like I slept in a barrel of vinegar.

Unfortunately, as that bike ride proved, the Mess That Was Derek at SLU, became Derek the Buffalo Barfly, and there are dozens of voicemails to prove it.

—–

“Bro. How are you doing?”

Matt came to Buffalo for Med School, but even though we live only a mile from one another, I see him less than his friends who live two hours from here near his family. I guess Med School is hard. Who would have thought?

Still, he’s one of the friends who saw the good sides of The Mess That Was Derek. Overcaffeinated, unable to study any longer, Messy SLU Derek had some of the greatest bouts of creative energy I’ve ever experienced. Sure, sometimes those were funneled into futile (and creepy) endeavors to woo a woman here and there, but mostly they were spent contemplating a human’s role, and worth, in and to society.

Matt, like most of my best college friends, was easily distracted, and would spend hours with me discussing the philosophy of “purpose,” not just personally, but metaphysically and societally. We made charts documenting the overlapping inner and outer forces that pushed us in certain directions, wrote lists of important biological and cultural tides that pulled us away from predestined outcomes. Those chats with Matt were some of the high points of a senior year where I felt directionless, moving from assignment to test to party to sloppy make out and back to assignment and barely sleeping at all in between.

Tonight, we sat at the aptly named “Goodbar,” and had a couple of drinks, some tater tots, and some fried pepperoni. I had just gotten back from a trip to Rochester, still in my suit and tie, and was telling him about the presentation I made earlier to a town supervisor and community association, how it went well, and best of all, 200+ miles of driving had drained less than half a tank of gas.

He asked some probing questions about Lizzy, questions I’ve only recently started thinking about myself, but that ultimately make me happy to think about, so I guess that’s a good thing. I told him as much.

“Bro, that makes me so happy to hear.” Matt and I started calling each other “bro” as a joke nearly 6 years ago, and I’m not sure when it stopped being said ironically. “Literally, I’m so happy to hear that.” He paused again. “Do you know how many voicemails from you I have saved? Literally, my inbox is always full because I don’t want to delete them. Most of them are from when you first moved to Buffalo, and nearly all involve you singing about what you are or were just recently doing… But some of them were not so great.”

(I remember talking to Matt the day after my bike accident. He called while I was at work. “Bro! Are you ok?”

“Yeah, why?” I wasn’t. My body hurt, and my head felt like someone was hitting me in the face with a two-by-four. I’d realize two days later that I was probably concussed.

“Bro, you called me at like 2am last night, and just were yelling incoherently about some sort of bike problem and kind of…well, crying a lot.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m not ok. Well, I’m really hung over. Let’s talk later.”)

I laughed and told him that he wasn’t the only one who had told me that. Some friends have threatened to save them just to play them at my wedding, or worse, my funeral (and while they won’t admit it, I bet some assumed the latter would happen first).

He said he was glad to see I was doing better. I said the same: it was good to be chatting with him at a bar, and instead of, as it had been two years prior during his first med-school stint, him depressingly describing his favorite spot as the 13th floor bathroom at Boston University…. All the while talking as his classmates defecated in the background.

“Seriously Bro, you went from being one of those "worst case” examples of what can happen to someone right out of school, to owning a house, owning a business… Wearing suits to bars.“ Not going to lie, I do like wearing suits. "It just is good to see man.”

—-

I’m so glad Lizzy and I started dating when we did.

She and I technically met my first day in Buffalo. I had just fully inflated the air mattress that would be my bed the next three months, and she walked in the door with her boyfriend (Eric. Weird, I know.) to visit Jordan.

We hung out again on her Spring Break the following March. She was home student teaching, and some of her friends were visiting, so they had gone out on Elmwood and wanted to hang out with some cool cats (i.e. Jordan).

In that time I had literally exhausted the number of ways I could drunkenly embarrass and endanger myself. Some of my decisions during those 9 months still impact me today, which most people find hilarious, but I’m more and more ashamed of each day.

Our first “date,” we went and watched the St. Patrick’s Day parade together and wandered around downtown Buffalo. I had just recently decided to pull my life out of the tailspin it was in, mostly due to the fact that I was buying ¼th of the company I worked at.

It’s funny, looking back, I can point to that moment in early February when my, to-then-boss said, “guys, I might have to close the company. I have to focus on my law practice. If you don’t want to shut the doors, I’ll sell you the company, but it won’t be easy," as the moment when I finally got my shit together and stopped thinking about Boston, or grad school, or any other distractions I used to keep from focusing on my current life and how crummy I was doing.

I remember thinking at the time, “I’ll give it 2 years, and if things haven’t gotten better, I’ll have to find something else.”

Within 18 months, we had tripled our salaries, and were on pace to increase our gross revenue by over 50%.

Last year we more than doubled it, and added three employees.

At the time I went out with Lizzy, however, that wasn’t really that clear. It seemed like a pipe dream, actually. Here I was, dozens of thousands of dollars in debt, voluntarily taking a pay cut which would result in me earning only $7,000 during the last two-thirds of 2013.

Yet, it was the first time in years, since maybe my Sophomore year of College, where my advisor asked me “Why the FUCK would you major in economics? To get a JOB? You’ll GET a job. Study what you LIKE, and you’ll GET a job you like.” To be honest, that, and how I feel now, are probably the only times in my life when I feel or felt like I’ve had any sort of control over my future, some sort of direction.

I told Matt how lucky I felt to have discovered that direction prior to that first date with Lizzy. We went as friends, really, and wouldn’t hang out again until June. We wouldn’t go on a “real” date until July, and weren’t “official,” until August.

By that point though, I barely recognized who I was a year before. Not because of Lizzy, though she was and continues to be a bout of happy disgusting sunshine or similarly gushy nauseating similes, but because for the first time in years (and one of the few times ever) I felt like I had a direction. A purpose.

—-

One of my former roommates once walked in on me having the “purpose” chat with another friend and yelled, “Purpose?? You’re talking about purpose?? Purpose??!”

He was an over the top character, and he took “over-reaction” to new levels of slapstick, throwing a loaf of bread, and tearing at his beard and hair as we laughed till our stomachs hurt, already sitting on the floor with some long empty beer glasses between us.

At the time, I was thinking about purpose in the cosmic sense, the type of purpose Matt and I used to talk about. The type of purpose where you found a spiritually, physically, socially, and biologically satisfying role in the world and in yourself.

I realize now that I imagined some sort of enlightenment would accompany that. Like, it was tied to some monumental decision, “Eat Pray Love” style, that would shake you to your core and reveal your future to you, the path, and your enriched life, rolling out in front of you.

Now I realize that feeling, of satisfaction in all those areas, doesn’t come from one large decision, but many small decisions, tied to work, to play, to the people you surround yourself with, and more importantly, that you dedicate yourself to. Purpose doesn’t come from finding the one thing you were meant to do, but from finding the several things, a dozen, hundreds of things, that give meaning to what you do in the first place.

As Matt and I finished our drinks, I felt the same thing I felt after a great meeting about a new project, or after riding around in my new car with Lizzy for an hour, or from taking 90 minutes to write a rambly blog post.

Satisfaction. The feeling that whatever direction I’m heading is the right way to go, but more importantly where I am now is where I am meant to be.

I remember when I was a kid, and I was obsessed with the proper English title for a young lord. “Master.” I’m pretty sure my first AOL screen name was MasterDRKing.

Now as an adult (it’s hard to even say, “young-adult” at this point; at what milestone do you drop the “young”-- is it an age, or life event? When you add a pink peg to the car, or pass 5 pay days?), battling the imposter syndrome, it’s tough to imagine yourself as a master of anything. Good? Sure. Proficient? Definitely. Master?

Who are we kidding?

I guess that’s why this series resonated with me so much. Less as a “young” adult, since, considering I spent my evening gathering signatures on updated lease agreements, I’m pretty sure I can just count myself as an adult now. More just as someone in their mid-twenties trying to figure things out.

It covers most things in the day-to-day of twenty-first century adulthood. From hookup mishaps, to bad timing, to appreciating our parents and hanging out with their parents. 

It covers struggling to find satisfaction with jobs that are below you, and for not being acknowledged for busting your ass, and for taking leaps when you feel like you’re in a rut.

It beautifully shows a relationship blossom from a broken condom, to a random meetup, to finally, a fully-fledged Facebook-official moving-in status, and the ebbs and flows of love, with particular attention to the cool-down autumn phase of romance.

These reasons, in addition to a wonderful cast, are why I binged this show over the last two days. Fear over work, and not being able to achieve what I want, or that I even want to achieve it. Anxiety over a relationship that’s amazingly fulfilling, but worried I’m just 70% to her, and that she’ll never be 100% to me. Desperately fighting the cooling touch of winter to prevent a breakdown where one big disappointment leads to a domino effect, that unfortunately doesn’t reveal a picture of a dead cat, but instead my own insecurities. 

These guys just haaaaad to come to Boston while I’m going to be in Belize. Son of a bitch.

Back when the Bills were being sold, I got in an argument with a Bills fan about how much it would cost to build a new stadium. Considering all the things that suck about Buffalo (the schools, the roads, the combined river/sewer system that made medieval cities look sanitary) it was absolute insanity that we could even consider shelling out several billion for a team that 1) sucked, and 2) was used for football only eight times a year.

My friend kept coming back to the same line. “Look, whatever it takes to keep the Bills here, I’ll do, even if it means we have worse streets than Damascus, or I could never send my kids to these schools. That’s how important this team is to me. To this region.”

This was a guy who knew all 53 men on the roster, and who would claim that “so-and-so cut from four other teams is actually a huge sleeper,” and that “yeah I said E.J. was our Quarterback of the Future... but I really think Tyrod is going to bring us all the way-- I feel it.” The last two seasons, he could tell me exactly who needed to win or lose for the remaining weeks of the season for the Bills to make it to the playoffs, each more elaborate, and when they were finally eliminated, even I would feel bad seeing his disappointment. Within a week, however, he’d already be talking about next year, and how their third-string receiver who just came off the practice squad looked good at practice.  

Eventually, after a few beers, he said, “You know, if they had won already, it would be different. If they had won just once, I’d be fine if they up and left. Instead, if they left now, and won somewhere else, I would never forgive them, and I’d never forgive this city for letting them go.” He paused. “Sometimes I wonder if I would care as much if they had won already... and to be honest, I know I wouldn’t.”

-----

At a party recently, I had a long conversation with a woman whose oldest son has been living in Boston for the last five or six years. Now that it’s football season, the Red Sox are the only topic that’s safe around Bills fans; they hate the Bruins, they don’t care about basketball, and mentioning you’re a Pats fan is on par with running your mouth in a Southie bar about how great the Yankees are. Or saying that you think Hitler gets a raw deal in his portrayal in documentaries to pretty much anyone. As the second-biggest city in the state, Buffalo has always been second fiddle to New York, so people here have a soft-spot for the Sox. To them, the hatred is on par with their hatred for New York... but if you also combined it with the hatred that fire has of water, or cats of dogs, or my friend Kathleen of showering. 

So, New England heritage comes up, and avoiding any mention of the Patriots, we’re talking Red Sox. She mentions her son again. “He says that the Sox aren’t that popular anymore. When he first moved there, the coolest thing you could do was have tickets to a game. He says that things are different now that they’ve won a few times, and you know, now they’ve had some bad seasons.”

It’s been a weird ten years since the Sox won. Not only did they win it again in 2007, but a third time in 2013. They went from last, to first, to last (... and now, somewhere in the middle). They spent money like the Yankees, then looked like the Rays (the Formerly Hapless Devil Rays, not the Tampa team of circa 2007 through 2012). They gave us Pedroia, Lester, Papelbon, and Ellsbury... and only one of them’s still here. They also gave us Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, and fried chicken, but we’re glad those days are behind us. This year, we got Hanley back and a Panda on third, but I was most excited when we had Bradley, Betts, and Castillo patrolling the outfield. Lastly, one of the two voices who was with the Sox through it all, calling the heartbreaks, the excitement, and sometimes, the boredom at times, of watching the sox, is leaving this year, and his departure from broadcasting for us has been more bungled (and more politicized) than the Big Dig.

I’ve been a fan through all of that, however, paying my $20 nearly every year so I could listen to radio broadcasts all the way in Buffalo, but I’ll be the first to say it’s still not the same. I thought maybe it was because I was older, and overall, sports take up a less important part of my brain. 

It’s not though; in a decade of overabundance (Six Superbowls and four wins; six trips to the post-season, and three world series; The Big Three winning five division titles and one Championship; even the Bruins, who had been bad my whole life, made it to the Stanley Cup twice and won), the pleasure of watching the Sox, good, bad, or ugly, is diminished. A bad season? Well, the Pats are 3-0, and did you see that wing the Bruins have?

I’m going to keep buying my radio pass for the Sox, and I’m going to count down the days until next season when I can maybe catch another game at Fenway, but I’m beginning to understand what my friend meant when he said he’d be ok with the Bills leaving if only they’d win.

Reading the article above, I actually shed tears, not just at the accounts, but my own memories of staying up late watching the game, of bawling after they finally won. 

Some thoughts to follow up Derek’s post from last night

I think of Springsteen’s first seven albums as having a chronological progression that matches up pretty neatly with getting older. With Greetings from Ashbury Park (1) and The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle (2), well, they’re young happy party albums. Rosalita, come out tonight! Definitely the product of someone in their early twenties.

By the time of Darkness on the Edge of Town (4) and The River (5), and certainly by Nebraska (6) and Born in the USA (7)*, the themes revolve more around hard times and dust and long-past glory days and failed relationships. Attempts to stave these things off, usually involving cars, are solitary and fleeting endeavors. There’s still room for some good things in the world of these albums (some dancing in the dark and all that), but there’s a lot of cynicism and numbness. 

And right in between, right when the needle is poised between hope and that other stuff, that’s when you get Born to Run (3). The escape songs and tragic ballads balance out. Look around: people are shitty, jobs are hard to find, money’s short, but you and I, we still might have a shot. It’s all in that ‘but.’ Desperate optimism, that’s a phrase I’ve heard someone use about it. I think it’s a brand of romanticism. You know that poem by Matthew Arnold, where he’s looking out over the beach thinking about tides going out and darkling plains and ignorant armies clashing by night, and the only solace to be found is with his lady? It’s like that, but the beach has a boardwalk and old amusement park, and there’s your car waiting in the lot, waiting to hit the highway. There’s that line from ‘Thunder Road:’

So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore? Have a little faith, there’s magic in the night

Derek and I are both 26. We’re older than Springsteen was when Born to Run came out. The early parts of his discography are firmly behind us, and as we pay credit card bills and try to balance work with love and look forward to Sunday’s Pats game, there’s a distinct feeling that those later albums are coming into focus. And that’s okay. It’s not something to celebrate, but it’s the way of the world.

But that’s too simple, and fuck it, no, I’m not okay with that and I don’t think it has to be the way of the world. Those albums are great and everything, but we all know Springsteen is best live. Listen to that video up there, the one from London ‘75, where he sings ‘Thunder Road’ with just Roy Bittan back there on piano. Bruce is in his sixties now, and still playing that song. Just because it’s not what he recorded most recently doesn’t mean it’s not a part of him. Myself, I have absolutely no intention of letting go of the belief there’s magic in the night, even if it’s just a harmonica solo on a dark stage. I can be happy I’m too old for staying out til 2 AM, I can have a cat and a health insurance policy, but there will still be adventures and spontaneity and some rage at the dying of the light; I’ll be keeping all the joy and yearning and desperate optimism of Born to Run tucked just under the surface. It’s hardly an original philosophy, but I’m fond of my own phrasing, and it’s nice to have a manifesto. CKL -----

* Nebraska and Born in the USA, despite wildly different production values, definitely circle some of the same territory lyrically. Don’t let yourself be dragged around by the smashing snare drums - Born in the USA too is driven by loss and anger.

PS. There’s this quote that Derek found a long time ago: 

Today I listened to the entirety of Ryan Adam's cover album of Taylor Swift's “1989.” I did it despite having no clue who Ryan Adam was, and having only listened to TSwift a couple of times. I figured I'd just listen to the songs I knew, and then an hour later, I had listened to it all.

I texted Cam saying, "I don't know Ryan Adams... and I never listened to Taylor Swift's 1989... but I love it. And I keep reading that it's like Bruce Springsteen, but I don't think I could name four Bruce songs. So I'm not sure what this means-- do I like Ryan Adams, or Swift, or Bruce?"

Cam countered that I must like all three, so I spent most of the evening with Bruce playing in the background, deciding that I like his Nebraska album the best. Amidst this, Cam was sending me all these articles written by Joe Posnanski. Joe is a sports columnist and Kansas City Royals fans, so I've read a lot of his stuff before since his baseball writing is spectacular, but this was different-- he was talking about Bruce, but wasn't talking about the first time he heard The Boss, and didn’t review shows either.

He talked about what certain songs dredged out of him. How songs about hot rods and long blue collar days pulled long summers from his memories of following his dad to the sweater factory where he toted big boxes of yarn around. How one morning while reporting in Japan, he had woken up with extreme back pain, and the only thing that could console him was one of Bruce's songs. How getting older, and listening to a man whose entire career was based on being YOUNG, being FREE, and being ALIVE suddenly was anachronistic with songs performed by old men.

Maybe that’s why Nebraska resonated with me more, and why I liked Ryan Adam’s album-- they’re slower, more bluesy and grassy, and while Born To Run has some classics (and some songs I didn’t even realize were Bruce’s), it’s not meant for me. Even though Bruce was 25 when he released it, he was already moving onto the next phase in life. I feel like I already enjoyed the most YOUNGFREEALIVE portion of my life, and the thought of repeating it is exhausting.

One of the articles Cam sent me talked about that: how the album after Born to Run was more reserved; how Bruce sold the rights to some dead-on pop-classics to other artists; how he wanted an honest album, and just didn’t want to be misunderstood. They spent a whole month working on one freaking song. 

That makes more sense to me. Busting your butt to try and do something right, even if it’s not flashy, even if no one notices. Just trying to do your job as best you can. 

-----

“Just finished reading that link,” Maggie said after I sent her an article and had rambled about how awesome Adam’s 1989 was “I’m obsessed. It reminds me of your old blog. I miss that.”

The piece was a tongue-in-cheek “Four steps to lose weight” article, where the third step was a long narrative about getting your heart broken and filling the spot formerly occupied by it with working out and going to the gym, until a year later, you no longer remembered the person who left your soul so shattered you plastered it back together with long workouts and lonely meals.

I miss that too. ...the writing, not the lonely post-breakup weight loss (though I guess I could use it).

The weird thing is, I don’t actually know where it went. The motivation to write disappeared.

I used to spend a lot of time with that part of my brain, thinking about things and then finding a way to write about it. For a long time, I felt like it was the only thing that understood me-- it definitely wasn’t my only friend, but it was the only thing that knew how to drag meaning out of long nights staring at the ceiling, wandering the streets by myself, or once again, muffing a social interaction.

Then it left. Around the time I took over the company. Around the time I met Lizzy. Around the time I began spending my 2AMs wrapping up a project rather than musing about my future. Around the time I bought a house. Around the time I began hiring employees and began comparing quotes on Worker’s Compensation or payroll services.

It would show up occasionally, when I was particularly stressed, or feeling lonely, or feeling stressed... but it wasn’t the same. It had a different feeling. It came accompanied by doubt, by fear, by dissatisfaction. 

I felt as though it had watched bitterly as I began hanging out with new hobbies/responsibilities/lovers, and now jealously threw it all in my face: oh you need help processing the world NOW? Why haven’t you needed me the last year, huh? You were too good to write anything with me then, but now that you’re sad you want me? 

Maybe I’m anthropomorphizing the experience a little too much. Maybe the “muse” wasn’t bitter or jealous... maybe your priorities just change as you get older.

-----

Bruce released Nebraska when he was 32. It doesn’t sound like he’s 32-- the album sounds like the bluesy memoir of a 60 year old man, retiring to the steppes, recalling all the good/bad/interesting things he’s seen in his life.

Age is an illusion, I know that, so there’s no such thing as being “too old for this, that, and the other thing” but every decision you make leads you down a path with many doors leading off it-- you choose one door, and subconsciously close three others. There’s nothing stopping you from choosing any of the infinite doors around you, just some keep you moving towards a goal you may have, and others waste everything you’ve been building to as you trudged along your path. Others, begin to feel like a distraction or waste of time once you have a destination in mind. 

I wonder if Bruce thought, after Born to Run, “I just made the best damn rock album in the world, and I’m only 25. Now what?” Coincidentally, it’s his birthday tomorrow; I wonder if he’s thinking, “I’m a music legend and turning 66... now what?”

I know I’m wondering, just a few days after my birthday “I’m so far ahead of where I thought I would be at 26... what’s next?” 

I thought the answer was, “Just be an honest worker; be the best damn Architectural Historian/small business dude you can be,” but I’m feeling that pressure that Bruce felt with Darkness on the Edge of Town; it saps the life out of you trying to be perfect. It drains you, and you find yourself shedding the fun (in his case, slam-dunk singles; in mine, writing, drinking, adventuring) in favor of the efficient path through the most direct doorways, ignoring even innocuous wanderings into side-rooms along the way.

After a day of listening to Bruce Springsteen, and before that, a cover album where I only knew two of the original songs, by an artist I don’t know, of an artist I barely know, I think it’s time to remember it’s ok to detour a little, that it’s ok to take an hour and listen to a country-cover of a pop-album, or to ramble out a blog post. 

“You know, the first week in bed was the hardest.”

Two years ago, my mom broke her ankle, and was holed up in the house, bed ridden.

“I was just so angry– how could something so small totally disrupt my life? It’s just an ankle for god’s sake.”

It was early summer, and she was able to move pretty easily now, especially with this little scooter she got. I had visited her shortly after she fell, and she had made a lot of progress.

“But it just made everything impossible… Going to the bathroom, showering… Even rolling over was excruciating.” We were visiting my cousin in Florida, and my mom’s cast was off, but she still wasn’t supposed to walk much.

“But, after a week of laying there, upset, angry, and in pain, I realized, “it’s ok– this is temporary. I’ll be back to normal soon, and this will all be over.” It’s temporary.“ —–

I remember what it felt to be lost. Wandering down a dark dirt road in the adirondack hills, screaming "Fuck” as loud as I could into the woods, because I didn’t have a job, or a direction, or any other purpose, it seemed, than to finish a few more projects, and get drunk in between.

I remember what it felt like to feel dissatisfaction. 13, walking down another dirt road, kicking rocks, and running my hands over large pine trees scarred by plow drivers who took a few too many sips of whiskey to keep warm on those snowy New Hampshire nights, wondering when school would finally be worthwhile, wondering why adults made such stupid decisions, and wondering if things would be better when I had a car.

I remember loneliness. Loneliness at age 14, joining online chat rooms to talk about Star Wars; at age 20 wondering how I would ever fill a human sized hole in my heart; at age 22, hating that I needed more than a casual fling to be happy.

I remember stress. Being placed on suicide watch by roommates worried about how much red bull I was drinking, and how little sleep I was getting, and how often I would show up at the townhouse at 4am, not from the bar or a girl’s room, but from the library, or an empty classroom.

I remember all these things, but I don’t remember ever feeling pieces of them all at once.

In a lot of ways, things are great. Work is so busy, we’re hiring two part-time workers for the summer. I’m 3 hours of landlord training away from being able to close on a house three blocks from my office. I’m in a healthy relationship with a girl who believes in non-violent communication, and while she’s never seen Lord of the Rings or all the Star Wars movies, is a voracious reader, and an emotionally and intellectually stimulating partner. Aside from recently getting hemorrhoids, I’m in great health.

But even though nothing is wrong, and by all accounts, everything is actually going great, I still find myself wondering why I’m not happy.

—–

I took 5 days off the last month, and still averaged 50 hour weeks. In a lot of ways, this is what I wanted: to prove that I could be a historian in my field, but also turn around a struggling company. I’m making more than enough to survive, and I’ll actually hit a decent middle-class salary this year (Buffalo- Middle Class… So like $20k under the national average).

But I got a rash last month on my shoulder (originally thought it was a hickey) that never went away. Two weeks ago I discovered what I thought was a birth mark… But on my stomach, and I don’t think you get “new” birthmarks. Today, I realized that “birthmark” was the same color as the shoulder rash…. And it was all over my side, stomach, and under my chest hair.

I’m calling the doctors in the morning, but a quick internet search told me about “stress rashes”, and low and behold, I see matching marks to what’s on my body, a physical representation of the anxiety and pressure I’ve been trying to reel in, and not let boil over.

Which is to say, trying and failing.

—

“Derek, is everything alright? You haven’t seemed yourself recently.”

The founder of our company recently retired, and I was joining him for a glass of wine since I’d missed the party.

I looked into my wine, red tendrils clinging to the sides of the glass. Can’t remember if that’s a good or bad thing.

I thought about how one of my colleagues was getting on my nerves, but professionally, was everything I needed in a business partner. How I had a beautiful girlfriend, who was so sweet, and who tries to make everyone happy… But I struggle with being patient sometimes about needs that still aren’t being met. I thought about how great our Preservation Happy Hours were going, but how I still haven’t recovered from my three best friends in Buffalo all moving away within a month of each other.

I thought about how nothing was bad, but I still wasn’t excited anymore about the good.

“I guess I’m just stressed, that’s all.”

—– Today was the first day I acknowledged to myself that I wasn’t happy.

I’m nowhere near the depths of those previous spells in loneliness and dissatisfaction and stress, but I can feel the stress catalyzing all the little things into volatile situations.

Recently I got in a fight because of a miscommunication. I’ve been getting more aggressive and less passive in my treatment of my coworker. I’ve been drinking more, eating more, sleeping less, and running much less.

I guess, it’s less that I’m unhappy, and more that, with everything good going on, I'm upset that I’m not happier.

I’m really hoping that, along with the rashes, this is all stress related, and not indicative of something deeper that is much more wrong with me. That with enough repetitions, my mantra of “I control my own happiness” will soon be true, and I’ll wake up as excited about each day as I remember I used to.

In the meantime, I’m fortunate that everything is going as smoothly as it is, and more importantly, I remember that things can me much worse than they are.

In addition to my own mantra, I should remember my mom’s.

I've been going to the gym more frequently recently. I started before Christmas so it wouldn't be a New Years resolution... but that's essentially what it is.

Originally I just had a weight goal, but now its become a part of my schedule because I really do feel better after going. I used to wonder how 40-something office-work men looked the way they did: it was like looking at one of those "before/after" meth photos, but with pictures of a fit cromagnon man, and a balding, paunchy Xerox manager and the before/after is "15,000 years of civilization." I vowed to never get that way... but already at 25 my body was giving me troubling signs that "after" photo could easily be me down the road. Especially with the whole "balding" thing well on its way. My gym is called Best Fitness so you know it's better than mediocre fitness or good fitness, but without the questions that come with something vague like "Planet Fitness." Does your planet have a government based off fitness meritocracy, or does it redistribute fitness equally amongst its citizens?

Best Fitness is essentially WalMart, but with workout equipment that you pay $10 a month to use. One big room with all the treadmills and ellipticals in the back, looking out at the aisles of arm, leg, back, neck, spleen, ankle, and glut machines. Similar to WalMart, there are a lot of characters that wander around. There's "Dangerously Tiny Girl," and "Tiny But Likely Dangerous Guy." There are a lot of tattoos. And there are a lot of people here for their New Years resolutions. They came here because it's where you get the best fitness. I just realized the other day that you can put your weight into the machine and it will tell you how many calories you burned. I thought about putting in 500 to feel good about myself, but then I looked down the line of ellipticals, and using a machine just a toss of a balled sweaty paper towel away was the most enormous man wearing what had to be a bed sheet as he exercised, his NORAD-approved headphones hooked up to what could only be a circa 1992 Walkman. I decided to put in my actual weight, and then spent my workout feeling guilty about thinking about lying. I've been using the elliptical because my knees hurt these days and people say that the ellipticals don't do as much damage. That may be true, but they're awkward as hell to use. It's like running through calf-deep mud...up hill. I get off of it and always nearly fall straight forward. Even though most of the ellipticals and treadmills are in the back, forcing you to look at people four, five, or twenty times, times stronger than you lift and pull and push things, there are about six ellipticals and bikes right at the front of the gym. Those ones get the pleasure of looking at a giant plaza parking lot. I prefer those ones, though I expect I'm one of a few who do since they're always empty. Maybe it's the fact that folks don't like being gawked at by the families leaving Golden Star Asian Buffet, or seeing pre-teens holding hands on a date as they walk to dad's car after a movie at the Regal. Maybe they don't like the draft that comes off the glass, a product of both Buffalo being about as nurturing as the tundra and the fact that the place, like Walmart, was constructed by lowest bid. I like that spot up front though. Partly because I tend to make too much eye contact in the back of the room. I just can't help it-- when you're looking forward, and some dude is doing one-armed pull ups like he's training for his part as "Parkour Terrorist #3" in the next Bourne movie, you end up staring. Or at the regulars; I find myself greeting them as they march between the machines, "Hey guy with a shaved head except for those two foot ponytail dreads..." "Oh, hey girl whose ethnicity I can't figure out, and seems to change, just like some folk's eyes, depending on your outfit." Oddly, none of them seem to have the problem of looking at others-- they seem content to watch themselves lift stuff in the mirror. When they aren't looking in the mirror, I wonder if they greet me in their head like a regular too. "Hey George Costanza look-a-like. Oh, finished your mile on the treadmills? Guess it's time for three miles on the elliptical, right?" I laughed the first time I looked at one of the broken TV screen hanging from the ceiling (Best Fitness, not best Atmosphere), and I looked like a spitting image of George, sans glasses-- balding, squat, squarish. I was laughing, that is, until I remembered that I too have napped under my desk, and then I honestly got worried I may be more George-like than I expected. But aside from not having to stare at every person in the gym my whole work out, I like the front machines because when you look out the glass, you get a fuzzy reflection of everything behind you, sharply contrasted by the view outside. Move your eyes and the machines behind you shift, blending into four images, like a Kaleidoscope. In front, the outside is crisp, sharp, clear. There's something comforting about this. Something in me is happy that what's behind me is a little fuzzy, a little blurred, and what's in front is clear. I may not know what to think about some of my decisions or experiences in the past, and many make me smile as much as the shifting image of some giant body builder blurring into four body builders, all pushing four giant boxes (which, to be honest, they could probably build that giant box thing they hop onto at a Home Depot for as much as they paid for their membership. There's a Home Depot in the plaza too). Some of those fuzzy memories don't make me smile though. My first year in Buffalo, and as an "adult in the real world," is a blur for a lot of different reasons, and it doesn't always make me happy recollecting some of it. Similarly, I don't know how I ended up in the second worst shape of my life, lost in a blur of the last two years, but I'm not happy about that either. That's why the window is nice. I can look out and know what I need to do. I need to use this damn exercise machine, that facilitates unnatural movements for the sake of burning calories, and damnit, I'm going to enjoy it. I'm not going to be George Costanza. I'm going to be in the Best Fitness possible (...or at least, better fitness).

Lately I've been watching episodes of Psych on my phone while I run, until my phone runs out of 4G LTE Supersonic SSN T-Mobile Data (or whatever they call it in my contract). Then I usually switch to some indie folk, which somehow really gets me moving. I find myself smiling as I click up the speed, tossing in a little air-drum action as I run faster.

That day I decided not to lie about my weight, jamming to Wild Child as I ran, mid cymbal crash, I looked again down the line of ellipticals at the front of the WalMart gym, at the enormous man wearing a t-shirt he apparently converted out of a duvet cover. Not the typical mid-40s (or in my case, mid-20s already terrified by mid-40s physical prospects) office manager archetype working on his New Year's Resolution to get into his Best Fitness.

He was air-drumming to what could only have been Rush, his garment made from a schooner-sail flowing from his gut to his knees, his Dr. Dre-Got-Nothing-On-Me Headphones projecting from his head like medieval skull-torture devices, grinning like a mad man at whatever he was looking at in the kaleidoscope images behind him. Or maybe it was what was in front of him. Maybe it was both.

I climbed off the elliptical, steadying myself before I walked to the locker room. Looking around, at "Biceps Bigger Than Head" guy, and "If My Leggings Were Any Tighter, My Body Would Absorb Them Permanently" girl, lifting things and putting them down, or hopping on boxes or pulling ropes, all the while watching themselves in the mirror, I realized I had more in common with the man in the shirt that could cover my entire double-bed.

As I went to grab my stuff, I thought about that guy, and how even if neither of us ever got into the best fitness, we'd still know what's in front of us, and for that matter, what's well behind us, is more than what's just looking back at us in the mirror.

[Derek]

Literally, I've seen this question asked about 100 times over the last few days, one of which was on my newsfeed. The proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back", I decided to dive into the discussion. 

Ok, let's do this. 1) Super affordable-- I'm renting an entire house for what most people are renting rooms in Boston and NYC. It's not just residential rents, but commercial rents are also low, meaning there are little mom and pops on every corner that only charge me pennies for peppers, or a dollar for a dozen eggs.2) Bars are open until 4am, and while I'm getting to that age where I don't even want to be up at that hour, knowing the option is still there is amazing. It's like having an old bottle of Jaeger sitting around-- I'm not going to have it for months, but every now and then, it's time to get wild. Touching back at #1, drinks are super cheap, meaning that a whole night out here will probably cost as much as a cab ride home elsewhere.3) The neighborhoods are amazing. Buffalo has the 4th oldest building stock in the country, right after NYC, Boston, and Providence. Like those places, the result is amazing, walkable, turn-of-the-20th-century neighborhoods, with unique Victorians tucked next to beautiful four-squares and various revivals. The difference between here and those places is again, #1-- I could buy a house for $40K. Hell, I could by a house for a dollar, but I'm not rich enough to fix its problems. You can buy a house in half the city where your mortgage will be lower than your average new car payment.4) Food. It's good here. It can be all fancy, like the vegan restaurants or haut cuisine, it can be exotic (Buffalo is one of the largest refugee landing spots in the country because of #1-- lots of Thai, Burmese, and Somali, means lots of Pho, Pad Thai, and injera), and it can definitely be greasy. No one's going to judge you for getting an amazing gyro overflowing with lamb and French fries, because they just ordered poutine and a slice of the best pizza between NYC and Chicago. The food is also #1 (affordable), and is amazing after #2 (getting shwasty until 4am).5) The people are awesome. We New Englanders are actually a little rough. We're like m&ms-- sweet on he outside... Hard shards of glass-like material on the outside looking to cut you. Buffalonians have a mixture of mid-west niceness, Canadian politeness, and eastern blue-collar work ethic. They're perfect. (Except when they play the Pats, and then they're bloodthirsty assholes-- but two days out of the year aint bad!)6) The arts scene here is nuts. People only talk about wings (which, are not mind-blowing, but it's just that they are consistently great-- no place has bad wings, which is different than anywhere else, where the majority have bad wings, but one or two places do 'em right), but our main art museum has the largest collection of modern art in the country, and has free admission on the first Friday of every month. On that same Friday, every art gallery in the city opens up and serves wine or beer, and usually has music, while you walk around and look at things you can't afford, and every Friday after, a different museum is free to the public. Buffalo has one of the largest theatre communities in the country, and the largest theatre "celebration" with Curtain Up, a night where all theaters in town debut a show, and then everyone gets drunk on Main Street where there's a mini-carnival and live music. Speaking of music-- that's great too! Every place that's open till 4 will likely have a great band playing, whether it's jam, a unique cover band, or New Orleans-style busking band. 7) Now, you might be thinking, "Affordability, and thriving arts, just means it's poor as shit right?" And yeah, it's got lots of problems, but I'd rather be here where I can see the city getting better, than in places that have fake problems. Any place where gay marriage, marijuana, or health care is actually being debated is a shitty place-- Id rather be in a place that has real problems, like abandoned blocks, low graduation rates, and a people looking for work. Buffalo may not need me, but it wants me here-- it wants people who look at problems and say, "Yeah, I'll help fix that, because I know it can be better." You lazy folks can keep your "already nice" cities. I like how Buffalo is rough around the edges... Even if my bike was stolen recently. 8) ok, let's talk about snow. Two days ago, I woke up to a dusting, and sunny skies. Yesterday, we had 3 inches. The suburbs to the south had 4 feet. It's a myth that Buffalo gets tons of snow-- the last two winters, NH got more than Buffalo. The city itself is in line with the Canadian escarpment, so all that Lake Effect is to the south. Instead, we get a nice idyllic dusting to make us ok that the wind is freezing our bone marrow (THAT is the bigger problem-- god I hate the wind).So, yeah, that's why anyone could live here. Whether they should is different: if they don't like nice cheap places to eat and live, hate live music and art, and a little snow freaks them out, yeah, they should stay away. If that's not the case... Well, it's been a good fit for me so far.

So I just wanted to put it out there-- Buffalo is awesome, even before the snow, and especially when you consider that it barely snows in the city itself at all. 

Derek: Are you all packed?

Lizzy: Yeah... Though I'm trying to decide whether to pack pants. I mostly have skirts packed since it'll be warm... But people who went last year said the main event hall is air conditioned and cold.

Derek: So why don't you pack jeans?

Lizzy: Well, it's business casual, so I'm trying to figure out what will still look kind of professional.

Derek: I mean, I wore jeans and a flannel one day at the conference last week.

Lizzy: Yeah, but you're a dirty hobo.

Derek: ...