I am so old.

In hindsight I realize two things. That I probably should not have named this site what I did as at best it only gives this blog at most a year's worth of relevance. And also, everybody loves you when you're twenty-three!

This time exactly one year ago I was reminiscing about my life as a 22 year old. It was the mark of not only another year closer to the dreaded high school reunion but an entire year of death, depression, and overall disappointment in all things I had once thought worth living for. It was my quarter-life crisis come early. Where nothing made sense and my life had already gone beyond unfulfilled potential to waste. I was marred and nothing would ever again be right. This was the sentiment that welcomed me as I opened the door into the next chapter of my story, what seemed to be a continuation of this dreary existence I had called life. (Of course I would be remiss not to mention the standout positive memory of the year, that one moment of reunion and consequent friendship that seems almost too unreal in re-tellings to be, you know, real.)

But things change. Oh, how they do change.

It's the little things that made this year what it was. This will always be remembered as the year I met Slow Club while eating bad thai food or the year I finally learned -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . It will be the year I met a tattooed security guard named Grim and shot down my very first marriage proposal, though the fortunes may have been reversed had it come from said security guard. Where I learned that every day is a day of “unbridled possibilities” and that even I had a story worth sharing. I will always remember the image of the old woman crying as I handed her a dollar. The coroner's seal on an apartment I was assigned which led me to meet one of the nicest people I might ever meet with one of the most interesting. The acquaintance that turned into a friend and the friend that called out in need when I was so powerless to help. Yes, I have done much in this year and met many. It was unbearably bleak at times and yet unbelievably entertaining in it's bleakness. Like the science fiction stories I am so fond of, there was hope and possibility hiding down there, beneath the hard sludgy surface. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

It has led me to question one of the statements from my very first post here which I once considered a veritable truth. When in these past 365 days exactly did the world stop hating 23 year olds? Or could it be so simple that I have changed?

Perhaps I have changed. Perhaps not. Not drastically so anyways. I still see the world in the same critical cynic laden eyes of a black haired teenager with internet access growing up in rural Missouri. But I can take credit for whichever outlook on life I choose to run with for the day or the proactive though futile actions that led me to enroll in classes, though the idea of sitting in a classroom again bored me to tears, but I must admit that there had to have been something waiting there beyond the winds. Something big. Something that I cannot, ever, take credit for. I look for it always and see it sometimes in what I like to call my hallelujah moments, whether they be good or bad.

Maybe that's just it. There is no good or bad. There just is. Because only when things get bad enough do they actually start to look good again. Like a circular timeline. It's when you give up on all the things you were always told to try and all the things you ever thought you wanted that you can finally do what feels right for you. I feel blessed to know the things that I know now. To know myself.

And so I come to the next year with a cautious optimism, while I sit here still on my parents' couch, this time quite unabashedly. Because I know I'm not where I'm supposed to be yet and I don't know if I'll ever actually get there. But that's okay. Isn't it? Because I'm on my way. Because I'm here.

Anyways, here's to things being indifferent at 24!