And just when I thought I'd lost it...

   As you may or may not have heard from a previous post or my actual self; the past few months I've been locked and trapped in what I like to refer to as my "quarter-life crisis". You have to give it props, this pesky little problem of mine. It has managed to linger longer than the remorse of any reprehensible action, embed itself into the brain deeper than anything in memory (regardless of its positive or negative connotation), and excavate the very core of passion and self-respect leaving it empty, confusing, and pointless to reconstruct. I haven't the slightest idea regarding what exactly to do about my existential predicament, but I have discovered a crucial aspect that could in fact pull me out of this to a certain degree.
   I haven't been reading.
   I can't pin point exactly why I lost the motivation to read in the first place, but as we all know, no well-read person can ever hope to be a writer, or at least a good writer. I'd been fumbling with the idea that maybe by reading again, I'd start writing again, and eventually the brutality of my mid-mid-life emergency would lighten up. Whether or not my plan is working is nearly impossible to say. The only firm conclusion I can extract from my recently started project is that I have come to realize how much I missed reading. I wish I would have decided to not be lazy, sit down with a book, and at least try to focus for a small amount of time. Oh, how I've missed my imaginary conversations with Wells, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Poe, Dickinson, and countless other literary geniuses! And just when I thought I'd lost it...I fell in love with literature all over again.
   This could be a turning point, folks.

A mild rant and its drawn conclusions

   I'm wishing that I knew exactly why I get as frustrated as I do. With people. With writing. With music. With everything.

   Going to lunch today with a friend and mentor that I haven't seen in a while kind of provided me with some insight as to why I've genuinely hated my old location for the past two years. I realize now more than ever that what I lacked in my old neighborhood was a collective identity. I never felt like I belonged there, like I had anything in common with any of the residents, or that I would ever belong there. Despite my desperate attempts to become part of that community, everything I ever tried in order to help me fit in always backfired and proved detrimental to me. I tried acting beyond immature. I tried acting rebellious. I tried to be everything that I wasn't and it wrecked me.

   The people there, as a whole, treated me differently. It didn't matter what I did, what I pretended I was or wasn't, they knew that I thought apart from them and they acted accordingly. I felt it. I could feel their judgments, their assumptions, and most importantly their refusal to listen and consider that; maybe, I could offer a different perspective.

   I find it ironic more than anything, this idea that, of all places, that neighborhood should have been the one place that I felt comfortable and secure. In actuality, it was the only place I ever felt obligated to shut myself away and pretend I didn’t exist.

   When I saw that there was absolutely no way that I would ever be one in the same with this group of people, I tried a different approach. I felt that I was being attacked all of the time through the harsh and inaccurate conclusions that were being made about me. Arrogance is form of self-defense to me and I used it. If people were going to accuse me of thinking I was smarter than everyone else, why not just take up that challenge? So, I did. I upheld myself as better than all of them. I negated everything that they said, I shot down every single one of their ideas, I played devil’s advocate, and I hated it. I hated having to act arrogant; HATED IT.

   I suppose it’s mostly counter-productive now to complain about it, but sometimes you just need to voice why something was as awful as it was; especially if you've been holding it in for as long as I have. I’m glad it’s over. I feel better living in my new area. I’m close to people that I’ve known for years and feel comfortable around. I get to fall asleep to the sound of a city, rather than the eerie silence I was met with every night in my old house. I feel good here. Or, at least, monumentally better than I did before.