Youthful Life: X

" Real strength has to do with helping others." Fred Rogers Cannot believe I'm writing my annual birthday blog post. What a year it has been. What a year it really has been. What a year it has been. This has been the worst year of my life, and there's no spinning it. The loss was too great. The impact was too pervasive. The devastation was too life-changing. It's so challenging to properly weigh the scales on evaluating the most surreal year of my life. My mom passed away. Everything in my head is organized into the before, and then there's the after. It's the jumping off point. It's the reset. If there's no acknowledgement of that, there's nothing for us to talk about. Everything from that morning (5:03AM) forward has been different. Everything from that point on is just the aftermath of the biggest heartbreak of my lifetime to date.  Everything is just the falling action from a climax that should have never came. How could this be my life s...

" The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it.  Memories need to be shared.” Lois Lowry Memories are all we have to make life real . Memories are what we cherish to carry all that has come before us. Memories are all that we truly are. What a year. What happened this year? What the actual fuck happened this year? How could this year be real? I have struggled to write this post because life is not some absolute balance weighing the benevolence of this isolated period of time. Simple me wants to say this has been by far the worst year of my life to date. Complex me knows that life not a scale that tips positive or negative. Life has nuance. Life has meaning when we assign it meaning. Life is life.  I think there is profound meaning in memory preservation, and there is immense importance in memory creation. We are tasked with doing both in our lives - holding on to the remnants of the past, and maneuvering to create our presents an...

" The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been." Madeleine L'Engle Another year has come and gone , still I am here in this life. What a journey year 25 was. Birthdays serve as a milestone in our narrative. They are a pause to let us a take a beat, take account of all that has occurred, and reflect on who we've been + who we still want to be. We don't spend enough time taking in what we've experienced, feeling it, and mediating on it. There's something to be said about taking stock of what we've been through, the choices we've made, and our impact on the people/world around us. What does it mean to be us? Why do we matter? How are we significant? Pondering those existential crisis may be feel overwhelming at moments, but when we are able to clarify who we are, and articulate our meaning then answering those proposed questions becomes an exercise in identification rather than deciphering. Wh...

"You don't get older, you get better" Shirley Bassey Birthdays are these odd days that remain seared into my mind's eye representing this arbitrarily significant repeating 24 hour span of my life. I can remember almost all my birthdays and each one remains important, even when it didn't go according to plan. There is this surreal aspect to your birthday coming around. It's a demarcated day dedicated to the celebration of you. For one day the world does seem to revolve around you. People come out of the woodwork, well-wishes pour, and suddenly you're the center of attention. It's as if the regular rules of the world are suspended. I don't know, there's something exciting about it but simultaneously it seems disingenuous. I want people to care about me year round, and to be able to articulate that consistently, not just on the special occasion of the day I was born. It's wonderful, and I appreciate it but I want that same kind of energy ...

Truth - Time stands still for no one. We blink and all of a sudden we've aged - whether or not we have grown is a completely different story. Year by year, week by week, and second by second our time moves forward with or without us. Externally we change but internally, that is with respect to our mindsets and motives, the process looks completely different. No one ever said growing up was going to be easy, but what they really should have emphasized is that it isn't a one and done thing. The day we stop moving forward is the day time stands still, and that is the way we pass away. This is my declaration of boyhood.   "Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years." Ausonious My birthday is here and somehow I made it to 23 years of age. I just finished rereading all my old birthday blog posts (check them out here: 22nd   21st   20th 19th 18th ) and boy or boy has life been an adventure. People keep asking me wha...

Truth - everyone gets one special day out of the year that is dedicated to them, their birthday. Today is my 22nd birthday and I cannot believe it. I'm telling you time absolutely zooms on by and all of sudden another year has passed. In the blink of an eye it seems that the annual celebration of my coming to this world has returned. For one day it gets to be about me and me alone, but you know what I've come to understand ... I'm not me without everyone around to support me. This birthday isn't just mine it's for all those that have been part of getting me through this year. I may be the birthday boy, but it's everyone's day. "We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be" Lauren Hutton   As someone who highly values reflection and tracking change I love rereading my old birthday posts (check them out here:  21st   20th 19th 18th ). It's...

The 20s are all about growing up. Growing up doesn't just happen overnight (okay puberty hits and all of a sudden your voice is deeper, your shoulder are broader and you've got all this annoying body hair). Growing up also doesn't have a definitive finale date. You can always grow and change as well as revert back to an immature or juvenile version of yourself. Growing up is hard as hell. It's easier to petty, to settle, to be stubborn. Growing up means having to take responsibility for your words and actions. To a certain extent it's about looking the part and carrying yourself that way as well. Think you're a grown up, well here's your proof point. Alcohol . It's one of those double-edged sword kind of deals. For some people on one hand it can help facilitate some of the best times of their lives while for others it's part of the some of the most destructively dangerous instances they experience. For some people, it's not part of their lives...

The 20s are all about celebrating how far you've come. Every year your birthday comes around and just like that (okay maybe not instantaneously) you've aged. I'm another year older today making me a full 21 years of age. Like how and when did I get so old. The past few years have not only flown by but they've also dragged on, like some kind of wrinkle in time (never understood that book or movie). Either way, I'm here. I'm alive and well. I'm about to be a SENIOR in college on the verge of the rest of my life. I'm supported by a family that loves me unconditionally. I'm secure in most of my friendships and coming to terms with the immaturity of others. I'm a not-quite so grown up but I'm making it work. This is my birthday suit. In writing this post I took a glance back at all my prior birthday posts (check them out here: 20th 19th 18th ). Wow, so much has changed over the past three years. Who I was when I started my college experience...