I made you.
I took you off the shelf.
You were what I needed you to be. When I needed it.
The scapegoat. The greener grass. The apex. The escape.
A stand in.
It was easier that way.
In any situation “good” or bad” you were there for me. A one-word reasoning.
Rather than decide for myself. Rather than face my own life. I had you. I just threw you in the ring and suddenly it all seemed to make so much sense.
And now that I know this. What’s changed?
Slowly but surely you’re moving from the shelf to my drawer. You’re part of my life. I can’t and wouldn’t want that to change.
But you aren’t my excuse.
I’m glad of it. Another friend recently quoted “It’s not what you do, it’s who you are”.
Thankfully he’s off the deep-end.
My decisions were my own. And those decisions made me the person I am today.
And it’s time to take ownership.
Have I done it?
I’ve realized it. It’s easy to be angry at someone else for putting me in this place. It’s easy to pine for someone who represents some “dream”. Unfortunately I have only myself to blame for being here. And that dream is only what I decide to make.
Time to stop the drama and find the solution.
Having a blog (really an internet diary) can sometimes feel far less cathartic than actually talking to a real person. After all, their response is such an important aspect of growing and learning. But even after such a short time my entry earlier this morning is beginning to have an effect on my outlook.
I find that instead of focusing on how awful school is and how much I’m unhappy that I’m not doing any work, my mind is drifting towards the future.
No, I’m not studying like a should. But at least the heavy dull hatred has fled for a moment.
My mind is contemplating what it means to be a medical student.
More importantly.
What do I look like as a “good” medical student? Who is that person? What does he care about? How does he structure his life? How does he study? What makes him happy?
I can’t see beyond the next few months. I have no idea if this is truly the right path for me, yet. These existential questions will only be answered with time. What I can say is that if I don’t pass right now, and if I don’t continue to pass then these questions will be moot.
The main difference between this mythical Jon a few weeks from now is efficiency. It’s Jon who does the necessary work every day. There will be those doing more. Yes. There’s no way around that. I cannot be a robot. Certainly not within the next weeks. But a more efficient Jon does what’s necessary. Keeps up. Nothing more.
By the end of a section I’ll need to review for sure. But I won’t be learning the basics.
One important aspect of this (which I haven’t mapped out) is a way to resist temptation. When work seems bigger than me. Too difficult to tackle. I generally just walk away. If I know I can do something. If I know I have the tools. I will perform generally well. In previous sections of school I was a very unhappy boy. I hated the work-load and didn’t like school. But the material could be studied in ways I was very familiar with. And I got through it with scores, which weren’t top 5%, but were pretty good.
It was good enough to put off some of the deeper questions.
Not anymore.
I won’t promise to be that good Jon if I pass this upcoming exam. That’s a lame promise that god-fearing people make.
What I’ll say is that I’m ready to look for a way to become that better student. I might just need a little help.
You already know what’s going to happen. That’s why we like romantic comedies. We can pay money to see a movie, where we already know the outcome. That way we can enjoy all the little twists, turns, and jokes. It’s all part of the same story.
I’ve been trying to write this post for about a week and a half.
When so much feels wrong. When the problem feels so big.
It’s hard to boil it down to words. Something to fit in this somewhat small box.
Whether for its heuristic ease, I don’t know. But I’ve decided to point to age.
It’s finally happened. I’m officially old. And I feel it. For all the Finasteride I see my hairline creeping. Looking across a room knowing I am in a different place from the college kids. Unable to go back. The lines on my face. The droopy eye-lids.
Yep. All these years later I’m finally connected to John Mayer and his quarter-life crisis. A place where you suddenly find that your entire life has led to this moment. That everything is past. It’s come to now.
It’s time to produce.
And I really don’t want to.
No one prepared me for this. But it looks like plenty of others are steeled against these lashes. I ain’t.
When you’re 18 you can sit down and imagine what you want for your life at 25. You can see it in your mind. Perhaps you’ve never tried to do so. But it’s possible to do.
And for me, it’s nothing like the plans. Not in one single way.
Not that life necessitates ugliness by 25. It doesn’t. But that’s where I’ve found myself.
It’s weird. Some of my life’s old problems creep back. Some stay quiet. New one’s are added. Perhaps that alone is a sign of my agedness. I once thought I would be haunted by the same demons forever. So far that’s only partially true.
25 is about accepting things about yourself. It’s about accepting things about the world. It’s about acceptance.
Not a high-point for me.
An old-time example. I have to accept that I will never look like the boys I’ve always pined for. I just wasn’t born that way. That wasn’t what my nucleic acids had in store for me. There isn’t some future when I will somehow be able to match them. Where there will be enough time to primp and prune and work to get to that place. Even if time were free it would still be out of reach.
New themes. I chose this for myself. It’s going to be awful. Terrible. I either have to find a reason to do it. Or get out. That decision looks giant-sized. But it’s the truth looking me in the face. If I never tackle any of the other problems on my plate, solving this one will mend most bridges. It will get me by.
And tackle it, I will. First steps made. Maybe not the most proactive. Maybe not the most efficient. Maybe not successful in the end. But motion.
You begin to realize that for a whole lot of people, life offers a lot of options. Lots of choices. Paths to many futures. Most of them are relatively pain-free. Small rewards.
A few people decide otherwise. They come to the end. Battered. Broken. But free. They sacrificed entire portions of themselves and made it.
They chose to do it.
And at 25 that is what’s being asked of me.
It’s what I’m asking myself.
I am now able to put my feelings in context.
There was a time. Within the recent past. I wasn’t actually sure how I felt. My life was in limbo. There really was no present or past. And the future was so cloudy that making plans would have been to dance in the face of chance.
My acceptance to medical school never actually registered with me.
I mean, it did. Arrangements needed to be made.
Where would I live?
Who would I live with?
When would I move back?
What did I need to buy?
But the inevitable has come.
Why. How.
I know my feelings. They are not some shadowy abstraction.
Last year could have been spent on a great many things. But what can be pushed off is always pushed off. Until it’s too late. Interest rates never rise until inflation has its’ cold grip on your throat.
So what is it that I live with?
The why. Why do I want to do this? Why does anyone want to do this? Why do I need to know this? Why does everyone else seem to know the answer? Why is no one validating this feeling?
The how. How do I discover my motivation? How will this all turn out? How do I take that dictionary and inert it into my brain?
Unequivocally I am stuck at the why. I have said it before. You cannot be in this business unless you are willing to give up things, which can often be part of the fabric of our lives. Things must be shaved to a nub. You find the one rewarding/energizing thing about “X” and you keep it. All its’ branches are removed. Spontaneity erased. Pleasantries vacuumed away.
Things lay bare.
Career consumes all.
And we’re to be glad of it. The reward of working, helping, learning.
I will say it. That sounds more like prison than freedom.
Apparently I am supposed to smile and nod at those folks working at “jobs”. After all, look what they’re missing out on. Career.
That’s what it’s about.
These concerns cannot be addressed on the fringes. It’s not a matter of “get through it” or “get out”.
I refuse to get through anything unless I want to be there. Unless there is a kernel, somewhere for me to put my heart.
But I don’t quit. I don’t give up. I don’t walk away.
I never have.
Not when it matters.
There are only two roads. That’s true. But I need more than a destination.
And the obvious truth is that those reasons cannot be divined. They cannot be bought. They cannot be rationalized. They have to be discovered in me.
I’m looking.
I wasn’t going to comment on this issue again so soon. The voting in Maine slightly irked me but I wasn’t really that bothered. However, then I was flipping through emails and found an invitation to this online town-hall where conservatives were answering questions from voters about the proposed “Obamacare” legislation.
I was about to delete it since I don’t participate in dumb meetings. However, when looking through the list of participants I saw some folks from the “American Family Association” were to be in attendance.
Rolling my eyes I decided to Google them.
This crap is finally starting to wear on me. It’s hard enough these days to support individual liberties over an ever-growing, ever-indebted, and ever-incompetent centralized government. Constantly being told that I’m a racist, an elitist, and entirely uninterested in the lives of regular Americans.
But really? I am feeling less and less interested in fighting with/for people who expressly view me as a threat to their way of life. They believe that old Jeffrey and I, all shriveled up, complaining about hemorrhoids, and filing a joint tax statement will infringe upon their dysfunctional marriages with anorexic children and philandering all around.
Here I am on the front lines. Living amongst the “enemy” constantly trying to explain why less government will allow us to live as we like. To take personal responsibility.
But I’m beginning to think that’s a lie. More and more, modern conservatives are fighting for a world that looks something more like Dubai than a Lockean paradise. A place where every person is free to do as they wish with their money. No one will tax us or burden us with regulation.
But at home we’re all being watched. We aren’t allowed to pray as we like, fuck as we like, ingest substances as we like, criticize as we like, or think as we like.
What’s strange is how counter-intuitive this all is. How can we fight for economic and health-care independence but then change the rules on other issues?
It’s a bit frustrating for me. I’m not sure where I’m going on the political spectrum these days. Actually I probably am not moving at all, I’m just more aware of how far away the main political parties are from where I stand.
Let’s say this, Republicans. You just lost a vocal supporter. I’m willing to vote for you in private but I’m not going to be your little silly fag foot-soldier. Not until you realize that freedom needs defending. And freedom does not fit into little boxes.
