Holiday Edit

I started writing this on TextEdit because my new apartment doesn’t have wifi yet.

My new apartment. My 8th in 4 years. I digress already. This is another blog for another day.

I have to laugh as the words spew from me. They come quickly but they no longer move as they did. Previously they acted much like I did. They were filtered and tried to be perfect. They were calculated and designed. They were always looking to impress and be better.

My desire for editing is no longer.

I would still like to remain coherent. Presentation is important, sure. However, if I have learned ONE thing over the course of 8 apartments is that the edits are what causes the stress. I promise at some point to stop with the runaround and speak straight forwardly. I guess I’ll try now.

Life is a fucking complicated mess of ideas, choices, vices, pain, hobbies, and feels. Oh boy, the feels.

At the same exact time, it is so simple. IT IS SO SIMPLE AND WE DO THIS TO OURSELVES.

I have tended in the past to be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. Not in the sense of dichotomy and ups and downs, but more so that I feel everything very intensely. To me it’s all serious and I sound so meta and deep. Why is this? I still do and always will. I think the difference is coming with the lens I am seeing the world in. What changed the lens?

The core of the change, I am unsure of. Maybe it was walking away from a seemingly perfect relationship. Maybe it was my sister/best friend having a beautiful baby and becoming an uncle. Maybe it was just being sick and tired of trying to figure all this bullshit out.

I don’t say that because I am giving up or “changing” who I am in any substantial or dramatic way. I say that because I am fighting a losing battle. The battle doesn’t exist. The life I am living has always had these things and I have always been this way. I’ve been the crazy guy damning my life unless it was all of these things at once. I demanded it to be an incredible combination of the best ideas, the most pristine choices, no indulgence in vices, perfect healing of pain, respectable hobbies and management of feelings.

Where the hell did that get me?

For any of my Enneagram fans out there, my fours will understand what I am saying. I am not making it out of this thing alive. None of us are. I’m not writing this to preach or to say I know anything or to say YOLO in any way (God take me down for just using that phrase in a post). But guys, we are all going to die.

I think what I am trying to say is that I am done trying so hard to reach something that doesn’t exist. Perfection, achievement, a certain way of living, whatever the “something” takes on for you personally. Is anyone else tired? I am tired and sort of exhausted by certain things. I am tired of advertising. I am tired of apps. I am tired of the same overused jokes. I am tired of the corporate ladder. I am tired of arguing about who is right or moral or what is the right thing to say or do with my life and time. I am physically exhausted from this game. I can desperately try to change the world but I also could exist happily accepting and letting go of a lot that I wish I could control. I think I know which will be best for me.

I am on my third very questionable cider/rose so I’ll stop while I am behind, but Christmas is around the corner. My favorite holiday. I always wondered why I loved it so much. After a lot of thought, time writing, and alcohol, I think it’s pretty clear. The holiday begins to cloud your world with so many distractions. So many vices. So many tough choices. So many ways to filter your face or your freedom or your feelings. To me, those are all gone. They are physically here, but they matter no longer. The only thing in the entire world that matters is loving others and choosing to be happy. The rest is truly bullshit and a distraction. It is a matrix. You won’t win. Don’t try to win.

I haven’t written in some time. Maybe this blog is part of the game and I’m realizing it doesn’t need to be. In either case, a holiday thank you to everyone who is reading this or has ever read something I have written. You matter to me. I am sending the unfiltered love I have to give to you this season.

Much love,

Derek