I'm okay with being 27.
Posted by tim
Wed. Sep 08, 10:00 AM

Woke up today a year older.

For some reason, it didn’t bother me as much as it did last year and the year before. 26 and 25 were much more difficult to deal with, emotionally. They were hard reminders that my 20s were more than half over: that wide-eyed innocence was a lifetime away. I struggled with the knowledge that I was never going to move to a new town to start college again. That I was never going to fall in love with the heart of an 18 year-old again. That I could no longer truly, 100% believe that “playing music will eventually make everything alright.” I felt as blessed to have made it that far as I did regretful, battling nostalgia and trying not to think about the intimidating uncertainty that lied ahead.

Not this year. As I sit here, a fairly-new Chicago transplant, blogging away on a site that I’ve grown to love instead of fear, I feel not only proud of my age but excited by the coming unknown. I might not have moved out of Boston to jump into the waiting arms of a rowdy dorm, away from home for the first time… but I have found a new focus and ambition in Transform and the Midwest. For the first time since college, I’m able to draw upon my past like reference books instead of hide my face in their comforting bosom. What I’ve been through and what I’ve learned are now not places and moments I constantly wish to be enveloped in, but tools that I carry with me into each clusterfuck. Trusty wrenches and hammers to unearth me from all the junk that can build up within: NOT “good ol’ days” security blankets to bring up whenever my spirits are down.

Cuz in writing a song called “Ex-Completist,” I realized that you’re not supposed to guard and hoard the past like it’s the only thing you have in the world. Put that shit in your backpack, get out there, and start adding new crap to the collection! There is no point in mourning and pinning for what’s past just cuz you’re stricken with fear for the future: just cuz you still have no idea what you’re doing with your life at 27, doesn’t mean reflecting on college / high school is going to help. I feared my life to be pointless, of no consequence, a joke compared to the hardships that my parents and their parents endured. They were born on moving trains in the snow. They had no shoes growing up and ate rice with pig fat every day. They ventured to foreign countries as 30-somethings, up against alien languages and racism just to start over. They slept in park benches instead of spending $1 on a hotel room. Some of them ate bark and grass till they starved to death. What the FUCK had I done? What the FUCK had I got to be scared, sad, or sentimental about?

I still don’t know the answers to those questions, but at least I’m not frightened enough to keep running back to memories anymore. Maybe my life is insignificant compared to those of my forefathers. Maybe I will never know what the fuck I’m doing with my life. But all that no longer scares me. Cuz the change of scenery and my own little piece of cyberspace – and, perhaps, the wisdom of aging (for once?) – have made me damn excited about what’s to come.

Just think:
15 years ago, I had cake in Quito, Ecuador with some of the best friends I ever made.

11 years ago, I crashed my first car in Miami.

10 years ago, I worked 12-hour days at a mushroom factory in the mountains of British Columbia.

9 years ago, I was on a boat in the Boston harbor.

6 years ago, I saw NYC for the first time.

Last year, I was thinking about moving to Chicago.

What could be better than finding out what’s next?

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