“It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things”
- Theodore Roosevelt
I like to sit and think about things. Sometimes, that thinking gets me into trouble. I find myself deprived, and shrinking from my responsibilities, because I have thoughts that are looking so deep into whatever the hell might be going on in my life and in all sectors. in romance (or the lack thereof) in finance (or the lack thereof) in school (in all its abundance) and in dance (in all its abundance). Looking at these things and seeing where things are going wrong, or right, or whatever. I’m doing something wrong in the area of romance. I’m not dating enough, or I don’t know enough people, or I hate the fact that I’m in an environment that doesn’t facilitate this kind of shit anymore because I’m an older guy in college trying to get his shit done and losing all his shit at the same time kind of hurts, ya know? I lost a lot in the divorce. Not so much the holding and the comfort and all that. I lost financial security. Yeah, I could’ve had that. I could’ve had a lot of things. I could struggle the hell out of myself to get school “done” and make ends meet. And yes, I did that last semester and felt like a complete heel for doing so. Yeah, I had money to get through.
But I didn’t have the energy to sustain it.
I was working nights in the blue collar, most debilitating work environment ever: grocery. I lift boxes. I hustle down aisle. I stack shit on the shelves. I cut, I throw, I toss, I turn, I lift, I drop, and organize. It was a sweaty endeavor indeed, and I was decent at it. The only problem was, I was in school. Most guys would do that job and that would be it, aside from some 1 hour workout at a gym, they didn’t have much time for anything else. We worked like dogs compared to the office job I have now, and that effort in the night was apparent in the day. I would show up to classes with only 2 hours of sleep under my eyes and would find myself completely passing out during a lecture. The teachers even noticed. I was fucking up bad, and my grades reflected that. Three B’s and a C for the semester, thank you very much. Yeah, I got it “done”. Yet my personality wants 100%, each and every time. I want to excel in the best way possible. I don’t want absences. I don’t want mediocre school work. I want the best being produced, at whatever level I might be at. I want the fullness of my effort to be realized and the most to be brought out from me in every aspect of my life. I want to work and do school and some of those things are only available to people that have no fucking life. By life, I mean the kind of life that lives on its own, trying to make ends meet. I live in a state where all my family is elsewhere. I live on my own in this crazy town, and with every bit of energy in me, I am trying to make it here.
Yet, the question has to be asked, how the hell am I going to make it here?
I know it’s important to be integrated into your class work. I know you have to be fully into it and you’ve gotta go after it and all that shit. You have to be, you have to do, you have to. yet, I’ve become so tired of it. I want to, hell, and every bit of willingness in me wants to. It was once told to me that my willingness would count for something- but that ain’t shit when it comes down to terra firma. We need substance. We need results. There has to be something we can look at, we can hold and make a judgment on. I have to look at this as an opportunity to not only be something more than what I am currently, but to be more than what anyone could ever expect of me. I know that at the end of the day, I’ll feel spent and completely wiped out at whatever I do, but this is a good thing. I need to feel that again, except in something I want to do now. I need to have a brain that is fried because I’m looking at reports from months prior and trying to figure out discrepancies in the facts. I need to be compiling video and doing edits with a red bull and a bag of Cheetos to the right of me at the ready if ever I’m in need of a snack. I need that morning coffee to wake me up so I can go to a gig where I have to write some shit about Paris Hilton getting a bullet removed from her ass from the night before and updates from the hospital. Why? Because as much as I will despise the fact that I have to do it and would rather go to bed, it’s my thing. The world of writing about things and reading about things and making it all come together- that’s my shit. And I would cut off both my arms if it meant being able to get on the red carpet and having the status amongst those that walk the same. Yeah, I wrote that movie. Yeah, I told her she would be perfect for that role, and now she’s here. Yeah, I did that. Yeah, I made that happen.
With that, I will have to leave this one somewhat shorter than the rest. I’m at a conflict in my life right now that might cause me more gray hairs than usual. Romance is dead. Finances are short. Living situation is organized, but it almost reflects this minimal kind of life that I probably need to be living for the next few months. I have a photo shoot in a few Saturdays from now, so that will be the only exorbitant thing I will be purchasing for a long while. I’m kind of apprehensive about a trip to Italy because of the finances thing. Plus, I’m looking at the summer and dreading what might be around the corner.
With that said, I’m happy about my beat still. I’m glad I can finally say something specific about the industry that I want to get involved in and be genuinely enthusiastic about it. I can talk about the things of comic book movies all day, every day. I have enough content and past experience with that part of the world that I could probably write a book about it. Remember the X-Men animated series that came out in the 90’s? I was into X-Men as a comic book before that even came out! So, I have been thoroughly schooled on all of it and here we are today.
I’m thinking back now to an offer my cousin’s wife made. She’s a physician in Colorado and does lectures at Johns Hopkins and all that. So, she’s got some clout with administration at the school she’s at, UCCS (University of Colorado Springs). She offered to put in a word for me to transfer over there. I’d be with family, and I’d be closer to the Summer. I miss her. I’m strongly considering it now that I’m going through my troubles. Do I take the easy way out? I could be living with my aunt and uncle over there, with enough to eat and a roof over my head, with most of my cousins there so I’d never be alone. And Summer. Plus, I could get my degree done and enter into the industry in a smaller market, at the Colorado NBC or CBS affiliate over there, and eventually transfer to somewhere over here, or in New York.
Ugh. What to do?
More later.
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