Getting Older

I think my cactus is slowly dying.  I mean, everything is slowly dying, but generally before one is visibly dying, he/she seems to be living.  This cactus has looked brownish since we got it.  I keep it in the window that gets the most light.  It at least has a nice view.  Plus, my office is not a bad room to be in, either.  The cactus certainly doesn't have to worry about being bothered by animals in here -- not that it would have to worry about that, anyway.

I sit here, analyzing the past few days, which are definitely hazy -- although I do remember them.  For instance, I am listening to LL Cool J right now, and I remember buying it; however, I still don't understand it.  The NWA I understand a little better -- I have been wanting to buy that album for a while.  I also bought Nouns by No Age earlier in the day yesterday, and that is definitely more my taste.  I like branching out a little, though.  Giving other things a chance.  It's good to be open.

Getting older is interesting.  Yesterday I didn't feel any different.  Today I feel like a different person.  I am ready to leave certain aspects of myself behind, move forward, towards the future.  It is time for me to really buckle down and work towards something.  This blog is a great part of that.  I feel like the more I write in it, the better.  It's great practice, anyway.  I don't know if I will write in it everyday, but I will certainly try to write in it as often as possible.

Now that the party, a.k.a. my twenties, is over, I can work towards making a living.  My way, of course, but certainly an adult pursuit.  In my twenties I didn't count on a future.  I just tried to live for the moment, and that worked for me for what I was going through.  I feel like I am beyond that now.  I feel like I can plan for the future, because I am living in the outskirts of it, and I need to focus on reaching the center.  I have my first novel and companion stories to edit and get out to the work, I am in grad school, and I am also working as a manager at a restaurant.

I know I keep on talking about  it -- but, hey, it's my blog, so deal with it -- but I am working a multifaceted plan to maximize my potential.  I am buckling down and really hitting the books hard, doing as well as I can in my classes, networking and making connections, getting my professors' confidence, and getting a teaching assistantship.  That will allow me to quit my job (actually, I will have to quit it) and focus more on my career path, both as a writer and as an instructor/professor.  I am getting my MA in composition/rhetoric, as well as a TESL certificate and a literature certificate.  If I decide to not go on and pursue a doctorate, I will be still qualified to teach at community colleges -- and other stuff.

I believe my writing is key, both fiction and essays.  This blog can't hurt, either.  I just have to keep up keeping up, which will be harder as the semester progresses, but easier once I reach a certain point with it.

Anyway, I feel like I can be more consciously concerned with the future.  Maybe it won't turn out at all how I figure, but I feel like I have slightly more control over it.  I am certainly not going to sit around and wait for things to happen.  That almost never works.

I think the point is this.  I have been dancing around it, but I feel like it is time.  It is time to do less partying, and more schmoozing.  It's nice to socialize and have fun with friends and family here and again, but I am through being so heavily reliant on certain substances.  I want to retain some level of control over myself, and it is certainly harder when I am feeling "free", which is how I feel when I feel how I feel when I do what I do.

This isn't anything formal, but it is on the record.  It is something I can hold myself to, but not something I have to so rigidly.  It's not a court-order.  It's not an ultimatum.  It's more a goal.  I am not going to say that I will never do it, because that is absurd and unrealistic, but I can certainly hold myself to not doing it very often.  I am better than I used to be most of the time, but I aim to improve yet.

Don't call it a come back.