Having a birthday on New Year’s Eve has always been strange. The end of the year is always a natural time to reflect on the surprises, disappointments, accomplishments, and everything else in between. That feeling is only amplified today, as I turn 30, and head into a new decade. It’s like Katamari Damacy up in there. That’s a video game reference, and not even a popular one. This is a lesson on how to immediately alienate a large audience of people.
Reflecting on a decade that was also the entirety of my 20’s is a potent cocktail full of pain, regret, laughs, and never shutting up about The Raid -- a film that set the template for all the recent action films we know and love. There could be no John Wick, The Night Comes for Us, or all those hallway fights in the Marvel Netflix shows, without The Raid. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker? I mention it only for SEO purposes. I seem to have lost the thread of what I’m trying to say so let’s get back on track, something a recent Star Wars film struggled to do.
I feel like I’ve been asked, “Are you ready?” more than anything else this decade, which is either an indication I’m constantly making big decisions that people consider, “impressive” or “foolish.” I know where I fall on that spectrum. I do my best to comfort everyone by saying something confident like, “I think so.” The truth is, I’m never ready. I wake up every day thinking about how little I’m prepared for whatever life is going to throw at me and also hoping my hairline will magically stop receding. A boy can dream.
If I wake up every day like that, you can be sure as fuck that I wasn’t ready to start a new job, or move across the country, or start grad school, or see Serenity (2019) in theaters. In my defense, NO one could be ready for that last one.
So am I ready for Twenty 20 (this is how I write it) and hearing about polling numbers every day? Am I ready for my 30’s? Well, I started having knee pain this year, so I’d say I’m more prepared than usual for what’s to come. But even if I’m not prepared, I’m definitely ready to be better.
Every year starts with hope and I think I’m going to make the decision to embrace hope this decade, not lose it. That’s terrifying to me. I’ve grown comfortable living in fear. Fear that I can’t be totally honest with others, and myself. Fear that I’ll never find the drive to fully commit the things I want to pursue. Fear that I’m never doing enough. Fear that birds will fly in my face. Fear that I’ll be this way forever. What happens if I’m no longer defining myself by that fear?
Maybe that all sounds absurd to you, and if that’s the case, I’m super jealous you have Good Brain™ and don’t struggle with human emotions. Thank you for reading this Mr. Terminator, from the hit film franchise spanning over 35 years, including the films, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation, Terminator Genisys, Terminator: Dark Fate. Notice how the two worst films in the franchise went sans colon? I know I just did because I typed them all out.
How can I breakdown my fears and find hope? I have some ideas.
I want to fully throw myself into creating. That’s one of the douchiest sentences I’ve ever written and that includes the one about The Raid earlier in this post. I need to share my work, and make work that’s all me. I have to remove the fear that prevents me from creating things that speak fully to my essence. And once I find that essence I want to capture it in a candle and get it on the shelves of Costco. I want every one to smell me.
In my work I want to hit all the clichés that other creatives do. I want to seek out moments of truth, seek out the things that make me laugh, cry, scream, and shout. Seek out hope. All while having a character throw up in every one of my scripts. I also am declaring Twenty 20 the year of streaming (church31 on Twitch), baby!
That’s only like half a joke.
The second thing I want to find hope in is trains. Love everything about them. How they are on rails. How they transport a variety of things. How they have a cool sounding horn. Choo choo, motherfuckers.
The third thing I want to find hope in is people. Please cue the heartwarming score that tells you how to feel for the next few grafs. Grafs is how we shortened paragraphs at an old job. Hell yeah. That’s sexy as hell.
I think of myself as an extremely difficult and frustrating person to deal with. Day to day I’m super annoyed by me. I feel like I can be funnier, more genuine, more caring, more decisive, and just better in every aspect of my life. I’m always annoyed I’m not better. So I assume people think the same things about me. Even if I don’t know them. The person stocking bread at the grocery store? That guy is questioning why I can’t be a more supportive friend. I’m trying, guy! Anxiety fucking sucks.
I have so many amazing people in my life who actively choose to be a part of it. People who constantly amaze me with their intelligence, humor, love, drive, passion, and ability to lose to me in video games. I love the one’s I talk with every day as much as the ones I might talk to once a year. It’s an embarrassment of friendly riches that I feel blessed to be a part of. The fact that so many great people let me into their life, big or small, is something I cherish daily, even when I often feel like I don’t deserve it. I’m going to try harder to accept that maybe I do deserve them, as long as I keep trying to not be shit.
Speaking of shit! I’m 30 now. I’m only ten years away from still not relating to This is 40. Like every birthday, I hope my Mom doesn’t call me so I don’t have to make the yearly decision on whether to answer the phone or not. Please forget to call me, Mom. I hope this next decade is full of me creating things and keeping the relationships I have, while growing in both aspects. I hope that I get the courage to unabashedly be me and I hope that people can find enjoyment in that. I hope I can grow. I hope I can ride on a train.
I don’t know what this is for. I don’t know if it’s to keep me honest, if it’s to shed a little more light on who I am, if it’s how I’ve decided to have some self-reflection, or if I just felt like writing the most self-indulgent bullshit ever. Could be all four!
What I really want to say is:
Thanks for giving me hope.