Haven’t had a lot to say lately. Busy thinking, I guess.
Feels like I’m at another mini-crossroads. The last one was when I left the TV station in January 2004. Now here I am facing two more weeks at a mediocre job I can tolerate, but don’t want to. I’m really sick of “tolerating” my life. It’s like when people would preach “tolerance” for gay people and I’d get all pissed off because being gay isn’t something you just “tolerate;” you embrace, accept, and celebrate. And that’s what I would prefer to do with life.
Spring has always been a transitional time for me. Patrick and I went out dancing with a group of friend last weekend. It was one of the first big weekend nights at the club when the weather was decent, so I could see everybody gearing up for another summer of parties and fun.
Halfway through the night, after Janet and before “What You Waiting For”(which, by the way, is so fabulously 80s I could just die), the DJ played the opening bars of the “Since U Been Gone” dance mix and I couldn’t believe the cheer that rose up from that crowd of 300+ gay boys. Not since Madonna (pre-American Life) have I heard them go that crazy for a single. Who woulda thunk?
But that was the precise moment, with dozens of shirtless boys jumping up and down all around me, dancing, drinking, getting crazy, when I realized how much I was looking forward to another great summer with my friends. The high of a warm summer evening house party is pretty unparalleled.
And it was also when I decided to quit a(nother) decent-but-unfulfilling job and start striving for something beyond satisfactory, beyond mediocrity, and beyond pedestrian. I’d rather be broke and happy than working and miserable. Even if that realization came in the middle of a money-fueled visit to the bar.
Okay, fine: visits to the bar.
I know I’ve said it before, and I have made baby-step progress after posting similar declarations, but I really feel like this time is more than baby steps. It might not turn out that way, but I have fewer options now than I ever have.
Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s like I have so few of the options I used to have, professionally, that I might as well say “fuck it” to everything and start from scratch, which makes the options so endless that it’s paralyzing, and all I end up with is indecision either way.
I also went to a family reunion earlier this month. And when it comes to fucking with your brain, there’s nothing like a family reunion.
Clearly, there are a few more posts to come about this, when I’m ready.
That or a few more visits to the therapist’s couch.
Shrink my head, Internet.
May 2, 2005 at 8:38 am
Sounds like a cyclical thingie. Don’t worry: it’ll always be there.
May 2, 2005 at 11:35 am
Well, me too. I spend so much time whining and hating my charmed life that it’s embarassing to admit. There’s little way that I can scrap the job path I’m on because I want to continue to pay the mortgage. If you can do it ~ please don’t wait. This soul killing life, real or unreal, is a trap. Good luck!
May 2, 2005 at 10:48 pm
Oh Nick, if I had it to do over again! I know you sometimes feel SO ancient, but the reality is that you are still such a young pup, with only a few things in your life that dictate you act responsibly…if not now, when? In 20 years when you wake up one morning and realize you’re still sick of ‘tolerating’ your life? It’s easy to say, “Yes, of course, life is meant to be lived”, but the trick is to figure out just what it is for us, the individual, to wring the best out of it. Then, if you are lucky enough to get an inkling of what that’s all about, be fearless.
Ahh, who am I to advise?! All I know is that when I look back now to those crossroads you speak of, and the decisions I made, I wish I’d have taken more chances and concentrated more on the journey and less on the destination while I was still unencumbered enough to take a big ol’ chomp out of life’s ass, you know?
May 3, 2005 at 12:32 pm
(Bri sits Nick down, is tempted to wag his finger at him, but is compelled to smile, this guy is so adorable).
Look, mate: I’m forty-four, failing marriage, two kids, came out only three months ago, the disaster of a guy I lost my heart to won’t give it back, I’ve wasted so much time, but as John Mayer sang to me (me!) I think the best of me is still hiding up my sleeve.
I am scared and excited and so happy not to have my nose pressed against the glass anymore, looking in at my life, there, next to the jelly beans.
You, my young Padawhan, will have crossroads all the way down the garden path. They’re your way of you telling your life not to be complacent. Don’t accept mediocrity. And that’s fine, but there will always be toleration, simply because sometimes we just have to wait a little. So tolerate it and go find something else to celebrate. We should never be without joy.
You can have your cake and it it too. You just have to have the next one baking while you’re scarfing this one. You have time. You have choices. You have crossroads.