So, It's Been Over 20 Years

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It’s not a secret that I turn 40 in May. Not a secret, because I can’t stop talking about how conflicted and melancholy this makes me feel. It forces me to look back into the past, twenty some years ago when life was completely different. When things were simpler, and I was simultaneously more comfortable, and less worried, but angsty, and angry all of the time. Back when I lived in a most definitely haunted house, that still stands to this day. That I’ve promised to myself, that if ever I can afford to buy a house: That’s the one I’ll buy.

Thinking back 23 to 24 years ago, the memories in my head feel like … like something from another dimension. Something that wraps me in a lukewarm blanket of black and white, in the midst of Fall, and the silence of my bedroom where I once slept. Where I smoked cigarettes out the side-window, and sat at my 486 computer and waited for hours, everyday, for my internet girlfriends to log on AOL Instant Messenger. Where I spent most of my time trying to decide on the coolest anime wallpaper for my desktop, or prattling on and on about meaningless things on the message board, animeboards.com. Where I decorated my room with goth and death inspired candles, and incense, and listened to KoRn and Marilyn Manson for hours and hours on infinite repeat.

The distant past feels like a place I could visit, if only I tried hard enough.

Yesterday, I pulled up my ex-girlfriend from the end of my high school years, on Facebook, and I sent her a semi-heartfelt message. I spoke about the reasons I broke up with her in 2004, what I really thought the future might’ve been months before I made that decision, in that time and period. And the things I didn’t express, such as how I wish I would’ve made different decisions. Wish I would’ve had my head on straight.

I miss it all.

I miss having all that energy. I miss not knowing what the future might be. I miss playing The Sims and torturing the Goth family while I renovated their house to be a castle of death.

I miss all the stupid things I said and did that ultimately ended up being experiences I would never forget.

I miss all the friends I had, and even the girl who only dated me for a week, in high school, only to ditch me for some other dude in a matter of minutes.

I miss not feeling like my entire life is bound to be owned by a corporation, where I’ll do nothing but work and pay bills until the end of days.

But I think about all of these things and how, you know? I don’t have to be totally confined, a loner, a shut-in. I could get back out there, and do new things, make new memories, and new experiences. The problem is, I don’t know where to start anymore. Don’t know where to go, what to do.

I do know, that something’s gotta change. In the immediate future.

Because your whole life can’t just be a cascade of thoughts that all start with, “You know, I miss …”