Another day…

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From my Dreamwidth account on the 5th:

I’ve been feeling frustrated lately with my creative endeavors…or more to the point, the lack thereof.

I mean, I should be excited about working on Theadia, now that I’ve got a clearer idea of what I want to do with it. I should be excited about all of it: doing the daily words, the drawing, the music, like I have in the past because it’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing. But somehow, at some point, I just…stopped. I know it was a mix of things: real life/day job stress, mental exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, internet distraction, music library obsession, comic reading obsession, and maybe even just a bit of Getting Older. I’ll allow myself days off when I need to rest, of course (something I often forgot to do during the Belfry Years), but I’ve really let myself go these days, and I hate that feeling.

I seem stuck in the Preparation Phase yet never following through. I’ll think about writing or drawing or whatever but never actually do it. I don’t think this is the same as the Boston Years when I was just starting out. That was a different approach: that was me learning how to focus, but it was also my way of avoiding an emotional spiral given the financial situation I was in.

This is pure distraction, plain and simple.

So the last couple of days I’ve been trying to restart it all. I’m deliberately not trying to do it all at once, because then it all starts feeling like High School Homework Due Tomorrow That I Should Have Completed Three Days Ago. I’m restarting it gradually instead. Making those mixtapes I haven’t made in a couple of years. Posting at the blogs when I have the time and something interesting to talk about. Popping onto 750 Words when I feel like working out a story idea. Journaling when the thought strikes me and the notebook is at hand. Eventually I’ll fire up Word and start working on Theadia again, maybe even playing around with Decline and Fall on the 750. And on my days off I’ll pick up the guitar and play a tune or two just for the hell of it.

I don’t think I need to rigidly plan all of this, but I think I should at least make a more concerted effort to meet my own expectations. If I’m doing one of my morning shifts at the day job, I have more than enough time to work on something in the afternoon. Same with the midshifts: I have at least four or so hours before I need to go in. I need to be better at acting on that urge to create instead of distracting myself.

…and again on the 7th:

I’m making good on my previous entry about just doing what I can do creatively and not worrying about doing all the things. Interestingly a reel popped up in my Facebook feed that made a lot of sense to me in regards to all of this — it’s not so much laziness that’s causing this procrastination but a mental ‘safety’ response. Somewhere along the line my Mental To-Do List started feeling overwhelming, but not because there were a lot of things there; it was that somehow I’d gotten into the habit of ‘things I must do soon’ = ‘must avoid this to retain my sanity’ with a sprinkle of ‘oh hey this fun distraction (music library, webcomics, social media) is a lot less mentally taxing, let’s focus on that instead’.

The fascinating thing is that I understand this, and I’ve ALWAYS understood this, and it rarely ever bothered me in the past…so why now?

I think part of it was the ongoing stress of the day job before I got my transfer, along with some other personal and real life stuff going on that just dogpiled on me over the last couple of years, and I got sloppy about letting it get to me so easily.

That’s not to say everything is magically fixed, of course. More that I have a better understanding of it all now, and I’m more aware of how I can navigate this going forward.

*

It is interesting how this kind of thing can completely derail your life. You’d expect some kind of high-level action like a life-altering event, or a financial struggle, or whatever, to be the culprit, but sometimes it’s just a bunch of small things piling up and a bad day where you just can’t be arsed to keep it together. Next thing you know you just want to enjoy life as sedentarily as possible because that feels better mentally and emotionally.

I’ve recently read about ‘bed rotting’ from somewhere online, just spending the day in bed like you’re an 80’s Morrissey and would rather avoid the world instead of fighting it. It’s not a new thing, even though it’s got a new name. I used to do that in my high school years. It was my own ‘safety’ response, and somewhere along the line I added ‘listening to music’ to that, and that inspired writing songs and poems soon after. And eventually that grew to writing fiction. And I stuck with that for decades, because that’s what worked best for me.

Which is why in 2020 at the start of the pandemic and my unemployed years, I decided I wanted — no, I needed to deconstruct all that. Sometime in the late 10s I’d started feeling as though I was repeating myself. Writing the same lyrics and poems and journals, visiting the same memories, writing the same words, to the point that I felt that I had nothing new to say. So I chose to not write for a while and focus on more personal things that I’d been avoiding.

But here we are in 2026, those formerly avoided things have pretty much been taken care of. It doesn’t so much feel like a clean slate this time as it’s more like raw skin after a long stretch of healing. It feels different and weird and I’m not entirely sure if I can recreate what used to be. Or if I even want to recreate any of it. Some of it, sure — the daily regimen that kept me going all that time, for instance — but I don’t want to return to the same habits and themes and thoughts.

Long story short, that’s where I am right now. It’s not a bad place to be, per se…I’m merely feeling a little impatient at the moment. The only thing left for me is to move forward. I shouldn’t have to mentally plan it all out like I might have in the past, though…sometimes I just have to let the day come and see where it takes me. Eventually a new creative endeavor will appear. Whether it’ll be something I’ve done in the past or something completely new, I’m not going to guess.

*

“Harry, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Everyday, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the Men’s store. A catnap in your office chair. Or two cups of good, hot black coffee.” — Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks

A year later

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We’ve been here at our new home for a little over a year now, and it still seems like we just moved in. We all settled in quickly, even the cats, making a few adjustments and creative additions along the way, and it’s become a home of our own. My desk still sits against the wall in the office, with the black bookcase squeezed into the corner, full with music, reference books, toys and stuffed animals, art supplies, and yes, even snacks. Up on the wall are a few prints by the always amazing Ukiyo-e Heroes, who I highly recommend. When I’m home, Cali likes to interrupt my work by jumping up onto the desk and sitting right there in front of the main monitor, demanding attention. (Juli tends to be more demure, sitting on the floor next to me and plaintively poking at me with her paw in hopes that I’ll take the felt ribbon toy out of the desk.)

The view out the big window to my left isn’t as grand as Spare Oom’s was, but instead I get a great view of the surrounding neighborhood, and on a clear day I can even see Mount Tamalpais poking up in the distance. I get to hear the whoops and hollers of the little kids during recess at the elementary school across the way. Both cats love looking out those windows and watching the cars and pedestrians, and they really love it when the crows and ravens fly by.

We might not be as close to retail and coffee shops as we used to be, but we’re still within walking distance. We’re also close to the Big Famous Park, which we visit a lot more now than we used to. And I’m still a short work commute away that gets me there and back in about ten minutes. It’s a much quieter neighborhood, but it isn’t remote, and it’s still in my favorite part of the city. We’ve been here in San Francisco for twenty years and change and we have no plans on going anywhere else anytime soon.

I still remember that day in 2002 when my mom told me about a travel show segment about the city, and thinking man, I would love to visit someday. Little did I know that three short years later I’d be flying out of SFO after a few days of apartment hunting, and looking out the window at the city’s skyline and thinking yeah…this is going to be my home.

Owning a home is definitely a new thing for me; I was absolutely certain we’d be forever renting. For the first couple of months I would get this sense of urgency that I really needed to write and mail out that rent check, only to remind myself that it was a mortgage payment now. That sense of permanence is not something a lot of us Gen-Xers got to experience throughout our years to this level, and we’d gotten used to it to the point that it was just another thing to grudgingly accept. It’s made me rethink a lot of personal things in my life, and it’s also made me learn how to fix and adjust things on my own instead of calling the building owner. [One funny side note: I never realized how many quarters I spent on laundry until we owned our own washer/dryer unit — one of only two must-haves on my want list, the other being a garage — and all those coins just started piling up instead of being used.]

In a way, this office has become to me what the Belfry used to be at my parents’ house: it’s where I clock in for an hour or two to work on my creative endeavors. Whether it’s writing, playing a bit of guitar, journaling or even doodling, it’s the one place in our home that’s completely dedicated to that and not much else (other than curating my music collection of course). I can focus here, despite the occasional distractions (cat and otherwise). I can also keep my creative work in here, leaving the other rooms for other things in my life.

I’m still getting used to this place being ours in the ownership sense, but I’m glad we made the decision to make it happen.

The Decline and Fall of Western Massachusetts

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This is a project that’s been floating around since my high school days in the late 80s. It’s gone under different names over the years (Belief in Fate is the one I’ve mentioned the most, dating back to 1988-89) but Decline and Fall was the title I came up with in late 1995 after the dreaded move home from Boston. It’s a title that maintains a certain Gen-X flair: it’s a riff on Penelope Spheeris’ documentary series about rock and roll excesses, The Decline of Western Civilization — itself a riff on Edward Gibbons’ The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — but it’s also a riff on the frustration and ennui of growing up in a run-down small town that one desperately wants to escape. It’s not that I hated my hometown, I’d just outgrown it yet had to wait my turn to leave. It’s jaded humor because that’s what we Gen-Xers do best.

Mind you, this was never a project like Isaac Fitzgerald’s 2022 memoir Dirtbag, Massachusetts — interestingly a book about my same hometown, though I’ve never read it — as that is not the kind of book I want this to be. It was never going to be about partying and taking drugs and underage drinking because there’s fuck-all else to do. Sure, that definitely existed then as now, but that wasn’t my life. I did my best to avoid that because I’d seen firsthand where that road led and I was just too damned stubborn to give into it. It’s a big reason why I latched on so tightly to college radio and writing at that age; if I needed that escape, music and creativity was where I went. The depression and confusion and frustration ended up on the page, always with a soundtrack.

Decline and Fall might have started out gloomy, but as I got older and wiser — and calmer and happier — I started realizing that this story would benefit not as a dire memoir or a gloomy roman à clef focusing only on all that bad stuff (which it originally did during its Belief in Fate phase), but as a story about finding a way out of all that. Thus it’s about that brief time when I discovered college radio (and myself) and found friends that changed my life considerably. [Come to think of it, this might explain my current obsession with the manga The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity which has a similar plot, in which Rintaro’s life is changed for the better when he finds his own solace of love and friendship.]

I bring this up because I’ve been thinking about finally taking it off the back burner to give it another go. Hell, I’ve even made multiple playlists for it recently! It’s become somewhat of a companion piece to Walk in Silence the book project which focuses on the ‘college radio’ music of the mid to late 80s. It’s a story idea that’s never quite completely left my mind, even despite being trunked a few times. That tells me that this isn’t merely an obsession with a half-baked idea, but an idea that needed a lot of time and distance (and maturity) between now and the time it took place. It’s no longer just a story based on vibes but one that speaks of a deeply personal moment in time.

Now, I’m hoping that it doesn’t stall again, but I’m going to be optimistic.

Theadia: So what happens now?

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Soon after I wrote last Friday’s post on Thursday evening, I thought I’d give the duology idea a try.

As soon as I found a perfect cut-off point a few chapters previous, I cut everything after that, typed out ‘to be continued’, and pasted those into a new Word document and saved as Theadia II. The change was palpable: I no longer felt that sense of constriction, like I needed to bring this story to a conclusion now. Just like I’d expected: it gave me breathing room, and also gave me more space to come up with what comes after answering the defining question of this project: if you could…would you do the right thing? I’d always felt that while I could conceivably wrap up the novel with our heroes winning the day yet still dealing with the fallout that comes after, I was always constantly worried that I wouldn’t give it enough time and space to happen. Like I’d said previously: I wouldn’t be happy with the ending.

So where am I at now? Well, considering that one of the main plot threads was the growing dread of Nima Federation forcibly reannexing the world and station of FairIsle and taking away their hard-earned freedom, I now have the ability to examine that a bit further. Perhaps they reannex, perhaps they don’t, but that threat has lingered in one form or another since FairIsle gained their independence. And now the threat is about to enter local space. This opens up a lot of interesting ideas, and not just one regarding near-space battles. This project has always been about the civilians and not the military, so it suggests all sorts of things: levels of patriotism, grief and loss, fear and uncertainty, compassion and bigotry. And those are extremely important reasons for Theadia (the collective) to exist. It’s what has driven them all this time, and continues to drive them into this second book.

I’m still not sure if turning this into a duology will work, but I will say that I listened to my instincts, and I’m glad I did.

Theadia update…?

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I’m still floating in a stasis on this project, mainly because I’m having an issue with these final scenes of the book. Rereading the novel-so-far is feeling more like a distraction than a help. I’m almost thinking that perhaps I should start in on another project in the meantime, just to take my mind off it for a bit, and come back to it when I feel more refreshed and ready to approach it.

However, the other day I was also revisiting those perhaps this is actually a duology thoughts I’d had off and on throughout this project. While this could conceivably be a standalone, at the rate I’m going it feels like I’m rushing the ending, or alternately I’m tying up all the plot threads a little too cleanly. And it occurred to me: if I stop where I am now in this book and follow through with said thoughts about a duology, that would give me the space and the breathing room to work on the rest of the project. And it’s a perfect cliffhanger at that.

To be honest, this is close to how I’d decided to finish A Division of Souls back in the day. That book is different in that I’d already decided it would be a series and not a standalone, but all the same, by the time I got to that final scene, I actually had a much better sense of where I actually was in the entire trilogy’s layout. Souls was all about Denni coming to terms with being the One of All Sacred, and her final ritual in that book was her acceptance. That meant that the next two books had to be about what she had to do next and how she had to bring it all to completion.

So, back to Theadia: I’ve said before that this book is indeed about taking responsibility when it’s needed, even when it goes against the rules. But it’s also about a bigger story as well: what happens when one’s way of life is threatened for the most dangerous (and frustrating) of reasons. And in the context of this story, I don’t think it’s one that I can successfully tell within the confines of one book. There’s a much bigger story being told in the background, and that is the story that needs more room to breathe.

Perhaps it’s time to make this duology idea happen.

Won’t you be my dictionary, won’t you translate fun

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I am absurdly gleeful that I finally bought the twelfth edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary! I picked this one up at the Barnes & Noble in Corte Madera, just over the Golden Gate Bridge, on our way back from a visit to Petaluma. The last edition I owned was the tenth, which I bought back in 2003 at that bookstore in Harvard Square that I used to frequent. [This was the one at 30 Brattle Street across from the small plaza, just around the corner from Million Year Picnic. It’s a stationery store now.]

I often think about that store, even though it’s been gone for years now. I found a lot of really great stuff to read there. It was part of my weekend jaunt into Boston and Cambridge in the summer, hanging out near the Pit, people-watching and listening to the street musicians, hitting Newbury Comics and Million Year Picnic and HMV and that store before taking the Red Line back up to Alewife Station where my car was parked. This was back when you could park there all day for a super small fee. It was the perfect place to keep your car during Boston day trips like these.

I’d take these trips every now and again in the mid-90s after moving back home, often on Saturdays when I wasn’t working at the record store, but they became more frequent during the early 00s, at least once or twice a month. This was during the peak Belfry Years when I was writing the trilogy, which meant that those bookstore visits were a mix of revisiting my recent past with a lighter heart, looking for inspiration in the science fiction section, and wanting to learn more from writing reference books. Two reasons I remember buying that book there: a) the price sticker had the store name on it, and b) I bought it in early 2003, and on that day the store was playing Beck’s Sea Change album, which I’d been obsessed with even then. I distinctly remember having it hand while browsing, a customer a few aisles away quietly singing along to ‘Lost Cause’. I’ll think about that store every time I listen to that record.

That dictionary got one hell of a workout over the next several years. Cracked spine, worn edges, dented cover, slight water damage and all. When I heard the latest edition was in fact out late last year, I finally retired the old one. It’s somewhere in the garage with the rest of my writing stuff, having kept it down there when we moved house last year. [This is why I don’t remember the store name off the top of my head. Perhaps if I dig it out at some point I’ll edit this entry.]

And now I have a new one, not yet used, shrink wrap just taken off, already placed on my black bookshelf next to my copy of Kipfer’s Flip Dictionary, ready to go at a moment’s notice. Sure, I could use MW’s website — which I do every now and again if I need a quick confirmation that I’m using a word correctly — but sometimes it’s fun just to pull out this big book and do some old-school referencing without any pesky pop-ups or online distractions.

Vacationing

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I mean, anything to avoid finishing this dang novel, right? Heh.

Seriously though…we’ll be taking this week off from the Day Jobs to relax a bit, see a few local sights, do some shopping, do a bit of long-needed cleaning and other house errands, visit the dentist to fix a cap (which I am doing this morning), and catch up on some much-needed sleep. And somewhere in there, I will try to make a concerted effort to plan out the rest of Theadia.

I’ve accepted that I am now at the very same point I was at with The Balance of Light: I need to finish this novel once and for all, I just need to figure out how to do it. Which means that I’ll have to spend an afternoon or two here in the office working out a planned outline, just as I did with that previous novel. I’ve got a vague idea of how it should end, but the getting there is eluding me. Well, maybe not eluding, perhaps I’m really just playing the old avoidance game. Whether that’s because I’m worried that I’ll duff the ending or that I’m already itching to move onto something else, the fact remains: I need to finish this damn thing!

I have also made it a point to start working on a few non-writing projects and catching up on some long-delayed house-related things as well. I have a few pieces of framed art that are still sitting in the office that need hanging. I have a garage storage room that needs rearranging. I have several bins of writing that have been sitting in said garage for a year that really should be more organized considering I’d stuffed them in there with no real organization other than ‘get it packed because we’re moving soon’. And I have a few art notebooks (both digital and non) that are gathering dust on my desk that I want to crack open.

Oh, and there are also all these books in my TBR pile that keep getting ignored due to my nightly ingestion of online manga (not that I’m wasting time with that, just that I’m leaving no time for reading anything else in the process). I’m going to need work on that a bit. I should also do another book purge…not that I have a ton of them like I used to (I got rid of a TON just before our move), but there are some titles I’m willing to part with and donate to one of the few sidewalk book libraries in our neighborhood. Perhaps I need to create a Read This NOW pile — not just ones I’ll get rid of afterwards, but ones I’ve been wanting to read as well — and get cracking.

But most importantly…? It’s my vacation. Time to slow down and enjoy it while it lasts.

Reflections and Parallels

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What you see above is the very first page of my current reading obsession, Saka Mikami’s The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity. It’s about two teenagers: the kind-hearted yet often misunderstood Rintaro Tsumugi (above) who goes to a bottom-rung high school, and the petite yet brilliant Kaoruko Waguri, who goes to the posh girls’ school next door. Despite the animosity between the two schools, these two meet and fall in love. It’s not a Romeo & Juliet story, either: this is a heart-lifting story about discovering what lifts one’s heart and working to make it happen with no regrets.

What I notice, however, is the reflection we see superimposed over Rintaro’s face in the second frame. He’s looking through the classroom window at the closed curtains of Kikyo Academy from his own perch at Chidori High, curious about what goes on behind them, as they’ve been closed for almost a decade and for not entirely clear purposes other than there’s been bad blood between the two. It’s an impenetrable wall where he’s not invited nor welcomed, thus the look of frustration and discomfort on his face.

And yet…there’s more to this one page, and this is exactly what I love about this manga. It’s not just a literal setup of what’s to come in the story; there are actually so many more layers to this.

We learn in the next few chapters that Rintaro’s childhood was not all that enjoyable. He was often shunned by his peers, whether it was because of his absurd height or his low grades or his inability to completely fit in and conform, leaving him with nearly no friends. Because of this, he’s chosen to go the exact opposite route, dye his hair blonde, and be a loner. Thus: that impenetrable wall we see in the reflection is not just a literal closure between the two schools, but one he’s put up between himself and the outside world. It sets up one of the most important main arcs of the story: whether he (and Kaoruko) are able to break down both the literal and the metaphorical wall of division. Despite this, he still has a heart of gold: he might feel alone but he never once mistreats anyone, whoever it may be.

There’s also the “so bright…” line. That’s not just a tossed-off line about the sunshine, either. Brightness will also become a recurring theme throughout the series, both literally and figuratively, when nearly every character reaches some kind of eye-opening revelation, discovers a moment of inner peace, or their heart is lifted to a level they’ve never experienced before. The word “dazzling” is used many times in these moments, and those scenes usually contain an element of lens-flare or a lightness of line art as well. This also sets up another extremely important recurring theme of the series: finding a moment — or a person — so dazzling that one can’t help but be lifted emotionally themselves and utterly changed by the experience.

And lastly, the reflection and the parallel: what happens to one person will most likely happen to another later on in the story. And not just the same person, either. For example, we learn that Rintaro’s youth is not that far off from Kaoruko’s best friend Subaru Hoshina, who was taunted mercilessly when she was very young for having silver hair, causing a deep mistrust of boys. These kinds of threads are woven throughout the story in a way that silently reminds you: despite differences, we are all similar in one way or another. Even though the two schools are initially seen as complete opposites of each other with that seemingly impenetrable wall in between, we learn that Kikyo and Chidori really aren’t all that different once you really get to know them. [Even two of the secondary characters, Shohei Usami (Rintaro’s rambunctious buddy) and Madoka Yuzuhara (Kaoruko’s nerdy friend), both initially used as comic relief, are often the voice of reason and emotional stability in their own way, and both state clearly that they really do not hold anything against the other’s school, merely stating that they leave them alone to keep the peace.]

This is one of my favorite tools writers use: the reflection and the parallel. I’ve used it many times over the years and it’s super fun to write. It adds another level to the storytelling that’s not seen immediately, and sometimes you don’t even notice it at all. It’s often during a reread that it becomes apparent, and Fragrant Flower does this frequently and extremely well. Sometimes it’s obvious: whenever a character has a moment of surprised emotional clarity, there’s a single shot of the lower half of their face, their mouth ever so slightly agape. Sometimes it’s personal, such as Rintaro’s wince (which shows up whenever he feels uncomfortable in a situation yet instinctively knows it means something important), or Kaoruko’s soft heartfelt smile whenever she’s caught in a moment of complete emotional comfort or stability. There are meanings behind these moments that otherwise might be easily tossed off.

I suppose this is partly why I’ve been following this series obsessively over the last few months, because in a way I’ve been trying to figure out how Mikami-san lets the story unfold in such a creative way so I can possibly use it in my own writing in the future. I learn something new every time I reread it.

[The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity can be found on the K Manga app, and currently has twelve tankobon volumes available in the US. The first several chapters have been made into a thirteen-episode anime series available on Netflix.]

Slow going

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I admit I am a bit frustrated that it’s taking me forever to finish Theadia. My writing sessions lately have been sluggish and not all that productive, getting only maybe a few hundred words at most, and often quite less. Right now I’m stuck on a scene that’s taking me forever to get through, mainly because I have only the vaguest of ideas of what I want to do with it. [There’s also the fact that I’ve been dealing with spring allergies lately, which have been leaving me with less energy than I usually have.]

As always, the only thing I can do right now is power through.

Meanwhile, what else is happening on the creative front? Well, not all that much at the moment, sadly. I’ve been kind of delaying that more than I really should. Perhaps it’s a mix of not wanting to force myself into anything else at the moment and the fact that I’m still getting used to my recent job transfer. Not that it’s harder or more stressful, quite the opposite; it’s actually that it’s taking time for me to get used to not stress-working through multiple responsibilities (each with constantly shifting priority levels). This change in stress levels means that my body is responding in kind, suddenly realizing wait, you mean I can finally relax? SWEET! I’m sure it’ll balance out eventually and I’ll be back to normal soon.

I remember this happening when I left the Former Day Job six years ago. I had no idea how flipping exhausted I was then, and it took quite a few months for everything to go back to normal. I don’t expect it to take nearly as long this time of course, but I’m still a bit impatient about it.

Like I said, powering through.

Unplugging

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So here I am listening to the new album by London dreampop/shoegaze band deary, and it got me thinking about how waaaaaaaay back in the day, I used to listen to Cocteau Twins to allow myself a bit of a dive into another world. This kind of musical genre, with its heavy wall of reverb guitars, slow dreamlike melodies and otherworldly vocals, always brings up the same sort of imagery in my head: the sound of walking deep in the woods, far away from any other sign of civilization. Sometimes it’s dark, sometimes it’s overcast. There’s always that hint of desolation, but not necessarily in a bad way; it’s more like finding a personal moment of Zen peace.

At least that’s what used to happen back then, well before I plugged myself into the internet in the late 90s. Since then I’ve been pretending that I keep the internets and my offline brain separate, but we all know that hasn’t been happening for ages now. My brain just loves that dopamine hit, especially when it’s getting drunk on constant music listening, socializing and constant movement of thought with nary a moment’s peace. Where does the real end and the cybernetics begin at this point?

Anyway, this is not so much about unplugging as it is another chapter in me Getting Older and finally deciding to detach myself from the multiple races my head is trying to keep running. Don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t all terrible, you know. I’ve met all kinds of neat people over all those years, some brief acquaintances and some long-lasting friendships. Learned a lot of really cool things, discovered all kinds of awesome music, been inspired to write stories.

But somewhere along the line my brain rewired itself when I wasn’t paying attention and I was too lax about backing away when it became too much. Instead I did what I often did during those same teen years when I listened to that same dreamlike music: I spiraled instead. I dove in to see just how far and how long I could keep taking it all in. And I had one hell of a voracious mental appetite.

So here I am, older and (hopefully) wiser, finally deciding it’s time to unplug from all that nonsense. It’s been an interesting run, but it was full of mental and emotional exhaustion. I’m not completely disconnecting from the world, of course. Just no longer spending every waking moment at top volume. I’ve distanced myself from a lot of things over the last couple of years already, so this is nothing new. It’s just deciding to go a bit further and relocating that mental and emotional Zen peace, and making that the new norm.