Happy Birthday to me. I'm 27 today.
I haven't written anything in a long while. The words just stopped coming out a while ago. I had all that time during the summer last year to do whatever came to mind, and instead all I did was drive around aimlessly, play video baseball, and sleep in. I had always dreamed of not working, and taking the time to do something really epic. Now I know that all of this is posturing, and given a large enough chunk of time, I will do absolutely nothing.
In the last year, I've seen the xrays, and talked with the doctors, and it is very definitely arthritis in my hips. The pain that I had been hoping was merely in my head is actually in the place where the pain is, and there is no way I can deal with this. I've got extra bones floating around in my body for some strange and redundant reason, and now I'm scared of syndromes with unpronounceable names that I didn't even knew existed. I keep thinking about those xrays and how similar they are to pictures of planets back in the 60's, and it fills me with this inescapable dread because my body is millions and millions of miles away, and there's no way any of us are ever going to get there. I stretch and strain to get the muscles to wake up from their overstimulated slumber, but instead there is pain and ache and fear. I hope they make large advances in hip replacement surgery in the next decade or two.
It's been a strange year for my family. My poor father lost his job because large corporations have no soul. On the bright side of this, he'll live a few years longer. No amount of pay was worth the stress or the hours of that crap job. He's much better in his new position, working with his hands, and feeling as if he has done something by the time he hits his chair at night. My younger brother and his girlfriend are pregnant, which floods me with strange and uncomfortable feelings. My previous facade of child loathing is eroding under a flood of feelings I didn't think my brain was able to produce. I want to throw down the world around me and defend this little life with everything I have, and I know that this is a dangerous over-correction. I guess I need some more time for this to settle right in my head.
We will be in Chicago for the foreseeable future. My wife starts her doctorate studies in August at a school here in the city, and this will take many years to complete. I am okay with this situation, and the dissolution of the plans to move to Albany this fall. Overall, this is for the best. We both have good jobs, and a nice place to live at the moment.
I'm not in the same place that I thought I would be, but this is more than okay. I'm glad things are settled, even if they are a little scary. Here's for the best results this year, too.