you get what you give that much is true

by mg at 06:15 PM on August 26, 2002

These are five supposedly meaningful things about where my head is at:

1) I am happy.
After nearly a year of alternately feeling ambivalent and displeased about my life, I’m happy. Now, I can’t say everything is going exactly the way I hoped it would be right about now, but since I’ve had a tough time getting what I want, I think I’ve finally learned to be happy with what I’ve got. And I am. Happy.

2) I’m poor.
Since I’ve been out on my own, I’ve been relatively well-to-do. When I was living in Iowa, I never made a ton of money, but the cost of living is so low out there, and I was almost always working at least two jobs (sometimes as many as four). I could pay my rent and utilities, plus keep myself in beer and cigarettes, without ever really struggling. In fact, I left school with nearly $10,000 in the bank, averaged out with my students loans, I was still in the hole, but whatever. When I graduated, I was already making more than nearly every member of my family. I had money to burn (and I did). But, when I hit the real tough patches of unemployment, there was zero income, but still all the old bills to pay. It got so bad that I hadn’t even bothered to balance my checkbook since January. Now, I’m actually making money again, and finally getting around to look at my accounts, I realize I’m not really making enough money to cover the sort of lifestyle I’m accustomed to.

3) I don’t want a girlfriend.
That probably isn’t exactly true. I want someone that I can call up on a Saturday afternoon to make plans for that night and maybe even sleep over occasionally. But, I don’t necessarily want one person to fill that role. I’ve never ever dated. I’ve always met someone, add water, stir liberally, and walla - instant relationship!

I’m so very not in that place right now.

Maybe it’s a lot to ask, someone to snuggle with, but also the freedom to see a girl out at a bar and know that if I wanted to I could talk to her and get her number and not have to feel guilty about it.

4) I need to do something.
I’m having all this sort of creative impulses that last couple months, and I feel like I’m wasting them. Everyone things they are going to do something big in their life, it’s a totally sort of cliché thing, and in reality not everyone is going to do something grand. But I know I will, and I keep feeling that this is my time. I just need to stop being so damn lazy and do it. Whatever it is.

5) I shaved my head.
And I like it.

More on all this at a later date.