Twenty-Six Weeks Later

October 16, 2012

Half a year in Los Angeles. I’ve been told multiple times by multiple people that I think too much, but after thinking a whole lot I’m not really sure what to say here, I just feel obligated that since I started a count of how long I’ve been on the Best Coast I should continue it.

~~Don’t click ‘read more’ if you want to read something coherent.~~ Don’t front porch your work.

Let’s be honest with each other, when I moved here I naïvely thought that the changes in my life would be minimal, even negligible. I thought that the only thing changing would be my zip code. That has simply been proven to be untrue.

I definitely know, 100%, that I’m in the middle of a pivotal period in my life. But reading that sentence back, that’s stupid, what twentysomething doesn’t want to say that? It’s just some kind of piss poor excuse for making decisions. I don’t want to distance myself from my choices just because I’m “at a crossroads.” That’s a cop out. Or rather, that’s a part of it, but it doesn’t define the whole thing.

I’ve been struggling recently with a sense of purpose. A new city, a new-ish job, new people in my life. My new fucking haircut! (haha remember that video lol??) I’m not smart enough, I’m not funny enough, I’m not attractive enough to be working out here. What am I doing here, what’s the point of it all?

And at first I thought, well, I feel this way because I’m young, and when I grow up I’ll have it figured out. After all, the twentysomething characters on Girls and Workaholics are transient too, unsure of themselves and their direction. That fun. song Some Nights has the lyric, “What do I stand for?” Young people all over must just be naturally aimless and despondent, it’s not just me.

But thinking about it, and continuing to watch TV, it’s not just young people, it’s people. Louie, one of the best shows on television, is also about a guy questioning his purpose in life, too, and that dude’s 45! Even he doesn’t know?

And it got me thinking: nobody knows. When I was in high school I had no idea how to be a high schooler. But I knew that if I went back in time I could crush seventh grade, and I knew that when I made it to college I’d have all the answers. But then I was a senior in college scared of the present, wishing I could go back to the past, and idealistic about the future. It’s a cycle.

Now don’t fucking think that I think that I’m inventing sliced fucking bread here, I know I’m not. I’m know I’m not saying anything new, or even saying it in a better way than JD Salinger and Jack Kerouac already did.

What I’m saying is that Salinger and Kerouac said it. And they said it decades ago. And before that it was Mary Shelley. And before that it was Job. And then after that it was Dickens, and then Stoppard, and Woody Allen, and Paul Thomas Anderson. And later it’ll be Smith, or Jones, or Galaxulon 5 or whatever.

What I’m saying is: I’m trying to reassure myself that even though I’m struggling with “why am I here?” I don’t necessarily need to answer it just yet. Or ever. We’ll see.

12:53pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZOWaTyVPV5JG

(Notes: 8)

Filed under: essay