As 23 comes to an end I look back through all my pictures. For better or worse I kept a lot of memories with me from 2009 to today, lol.
As a kid, like everyone else, I thought people who were 23 had it all figured out. They had the things I wanted. They had an apartment. They had a good paying job. They had a girlfriend. They had these exciting pictures of drinking every night with their friends.
I remember wanting to be so free at like 18 that I slept on couches and ran around the city trying to figure out the man I was becoming. In hindsight my mother was crushed that she came home and all my shit was packed and I was moved out without a letter or goodbye. She thought that her son had become a drug addict and bad guy (never became a drug addict HAHA)
I was just trying to be an adult. I wanted to quit being a burden to my parents at 18 and I decided it was my time to go out there in the world whether I had stability to survive or not.
I owe my beginnings to the people who let me sleep on their couches. The piece of shit restaurants that I washed dishes and waited tables for for some pocket change to get cigarettes and a blunt.
I have these flashes pop into my head that make me regret all of the decisions I made.
I think when you turn left you always wish you turned right and vice versa. We’ll never get it right in life, unfortunately.
So now that i’m no longer on a couch wondering where my next meal will come from what are my next steps? I look around at my peers and I see such a diverse group. There are people who graduated college and made their parents proud. There are people who started but didn’t finish or flat out never went to college and are trying to climb the ladder at work or find their passion. Of course we have a lot of both of the groups getting married or having children or both.
I think both groups always have criticisms of each other.
The college graduates think the ones who never went are gonna be bums. The ones who never went to college think the college graduates are stuck up or had it easier in life. The people who are married think that the single lifestyle is full of cheating and pointless partying. The single people think the married people are getting married too young and are making huge mistakes.
While my views lie in between it all, who are we to judge?
I think that kid that loves to write is still there. Though it’s no longer romantic story telling or transparent windows into my personal life it’s still there.
I try to talk to friends about working hard towards goals and dreams. Saving money to invest. Business ideas come and go like fleeting dreams. This country is a very pay to play lifestyle and we need that cushion of capital in order to start businesses and build credit etc. I think I was so poor as a kid I worked hard to stack money any means possible. Don’t get me wrong i’m still poor as shit but i’m not wondering where my next meal will be anymore.
I still love music so much but I think i’m starting to become an old head in the sense that I kind of never left 2009 era hip hop or 90′s hip hop. I don’t remember the last time I sat down and played some music and sat down and wrote on my laptop.
This year has brought a lot of growing pains. I still have a lot of pride and ego I think I need to work through. I always thought of the people I love as a group. I wanted EVERYONE to have successful jobs. I wanted EVERYONE to think like me and make money like me and go these routes I think they’d be perfect at.
The 23rd year of my life taught me that you can’t contain people in this bubble you have for them in your head. You have to just focus on you and your trajectory. I have opportunities that my friends do not and they have opportunities I do not have. Ego is a big problem here. We think this guy is making a mistake and he thinks i’m making a mistake and it just causes a tension between us all. In the end we can always meet up for a beer or just call and check up no matter where life takes us.
I think the real world beat me down for a while and my ego put me in a place where I was unable to create or see further than what everyone else’s ego was boxing me into.
I haven’t figured out anything in life like how to land that job after college that I will grind for the next 30 years. But I hope that’s alright.
We’re in an age where Twitter and Instagram are popping. It’s all about jokes or showing people the most beautiful sides of life. I don’t think life is always meant to be the Instagram worthy picture.
I miss this place because it was where I shared a lot of my thoughts and ideas growing up for a while. A lot of me has changed and I know in my heart i’m trying to be a good man to people around me. I’m a better son to my mom than that angry trapped 18 year old. I hope i’m a good big brother to look up to to my extremely successful sister even though we took different paths at 18. I hope my friends know that the advice I give them are from the heart. I hope the girl I broke up with a few months ago knows that I love her unconditionally and needed to figure out who I am.
I think I really hurt that girl after 3 years of a relationship. She was always let down that I didn’t write romantic think pieces about her but I valued her so much I don’t think I ever cared to write about it. I just was in love and living in it. Maybe I should come to write about that, but I think that will be a hindsight reflection for later on in life.
Real talk I hate making people feel like I let them down. I forget so much of what I say to people or how I treated them in the past I hope if there’s any unresolved issues that they get brought up and squashed. I always have to close cracked doors to open new ones.
I think this year will be the first one in like 10 years where I didn’t throw a party or took a trip somewhere like Miami or to a cabin in the mountains with friends.
I think it comes down to 2 things. Me taking a trip alone to really unwind or sitting in my mom’s living room eating some Vietnamese home cooking being around immediate family. Am I really that old?
I hope 24 brings me internal growth like 23 did. I hope it isn’t as hard but I know it will be harder. My uncle told me that you can’t run away from hardships in life. You have to face them head on and see the true pain in order to grow. He told me all the problems I have now are small compared to the problems that are to come.
I never wanted fame. I always wanted money to take care of my family and friends. But now i’m about to be 24 I don’t think I want either.
I want peace of mind and freedom from ego.
