Well, here before you sits my new header (the very childishly drawn picture up there).  I got a little tablet happy the past week and it very obviously distracted me from everything else in life.  Tablets are awesome.  If you enjoy drawing, you should get one.  Then you too can have fancy headers.  (Or – idea- just commission me to do one for you.)

Every day thousands of ideas run through my brain like a gazelle stampede.  When I was a kid, I used to lay on the floor of my grandparents’ living room and stare up at the ceiling fan.  While it was spinning, I could only focus in on one blade at a time.  I wish I could harness that ability and use it to focus in on one of the idea-gazelles.

It’s so hard feeling unsettled all the time.  Please don’t take this as another one of those “nothing is really wrong in my life so I’m going to complain about my mild discomfort” entries that people post all the time.  I swear that’s not what it is.

I just feel really stuck.  I feel like this time in my life is supposed to be so full and explosive, and I’m spending it on my parents’ couch not staring at any sort of ceiling fan, but instead staring at the hypothetical possibilities I’ve imagined for myself somewhere beyond where I am.

I read an awesome article the other day (link here), which talked about being appreciative of the now – even if it feels like nothing is happening.  I suck at that.  I absolutely suck at it.  My whole life I’ve wanted to be somewhere I could not reach, somewhere into the future where things were all “worked out.”  I’m not a particularly happy person by nature.  I’ve been told my whole life that things are supposed to “get better,” and I’ve clung to the hope that comes with that statement, not really grasping that it takes a whole lot of work on my part to make it better.  That’s my problem.  I can’t make the connection from now to a better version of now.  It’s like when you’ve just gotten out of the shower and you’re huddled up in a towel.  You’re freezing (because it’s winter.  I should’ve mentioned that.  Readers from Florida and California, pretend you know what winter feels like.  Oh! It’s like when you’ve left the air on for too long and it’s only 50 degrees outside anyway), and you know that if you get dressed and blow dry your hair you will be perfectly warm and content but you just can’t bring yourself to face the two minutes of freezing you will endure when you step out from your towel-barrier.  That’s me.  I’m stuck in my towel-now.  I realize this may not have been the best analogy.

My resolve for 2014 is to try harder – at everything.  I want to love better, I want to have more motivation, I want to be a better child, friend, human being.  But I have to try harder.  Trying harder to try harder is really hard.

The first post of 2014

One thing I am absolutely good at doing is choosing the worst time to waste time, and that time is NOW.

I realize I have been pretty absent lately.  Check that, I’ve been completely absent.  It’s been a nice solid break from writing, and I’ve finally started to miss it.

I’ve recently decided to try to write a play (or rock opera.  or something.  I don’t really know what genre it falls under, but it’s going to incorporate ballad versions of rock songs [i.e. Seventy Times Seven by Brand New, or Mr. Brightside by The Killers] other than that, I have no leads or interesting info in my brain.  I just want to do it in 2014), recently being about ten minutes ago, so I’ll be putting random bits of that up here.  Feel free to nag me about it and keep me accountable.

I’m also quite enamored with lists, so I’ll be handing you some of those as well.  (See: Top Ten Songs for the Zombie Apocalypse – Coming soon!)

I just wanted to thank you once again for giving my blog a bit of your time! I look forward to learning, growing, writing, and reading with you in this new year 🙂