Almost thirty and feeling...

in six months i turn 30. the only significance that number has to me is the amount of experience i'll have in my life. i never really got into video games, but they've got things like experience points, right? i'll soon have the equivalent of 30 years of experience points. once my brother played a zombie game called dead rising for 27 hours. i'll have more experience points than he did in that game. although instead of experience in killing zombies with baseball bats and lawnmowers and shit, i'll have experience in playing baseball and mowing the lawn and shit. even though i've only mowed one lawn in my entire life and swimming was my sport instead of baseball. but i'll have experience in eating chicken nuggets and making my own chicken fingers from scratch. riding in the backseat of minivans and driving my car across the country. learning how to swim and teaching kids how to swim. reading books and working for the newspaper. surfing the web and watching spiderman. meeting people and saying goodbye. depending on others and thinking for myself. nothing that i've done in my life is insignificant. it's all made me who i am right now. everything i have ever done in thirty years is why i think how i think. it's why i look how i look. it's why i love what i love. and why i do what i do. i'm looking forward to celebrating my biggest accomplishment so far in my life. thirty. thirty years of doing shit. and feeling shit. and experiencing shit. the question is, what am i going to do with all my points?



that sounded like the voice over to some tv show pilot, didn't it? well, i'm not zooey deschenal nor do i have any desire to write a script, but i am into girl power and journaling my thoughts privately. these posts, however, will not be private but they will most likely have girl power from time to time. i'm a pretty quiet person. it's physically hard for me to raise my voice. i don't stomp when i walk, i set things down carefully, i don't slam doors and i keep the music low in my apartment between 10pm and 10am. the loudest thing about me is probably my hot pink rain jacket and neon orange puma crocs (don't hate. they're my favorite pair of shoes i've ever owned). what i'm saying is i don't say much to many people, but i have some things i want to say. i'm tired of the news, i don't think your score in candy crush matters, swimming is important, you can learn a lot on a road trip and being positive positively helps.



there's just too much bad in the world. too many people dying because of war or hate or anger or concussions or disease. that's a lot of ways people are dying. and each of those ways has a million subcategories. what's happening here? i worked in obituaries for two years and i admittedly probably do think about death more often than most people, but i don't want to think about that right now. i want to think about life (what else could there be, right?). sure, i want kids and my dream job and a certain level of monetary comfort, but what i'm thinking about wanting most as i approach 30, is a way i can make the rest of my years and everyone's years around me better. i want a way i can help people be happy. and hopeful. and believe that someone believes in them. i try to be nice and empathetic and nine times out of ten i give people the benefit of the doubt, but there's gotta be more, right? there has to be more i can do. some way i can have a wider reach. i just want people to know that even if it ain't all good, it's all good enough.



i've resisted for a long time publishing something on the internet to get lost in the thousands of other somethings on the internet, but i've got all these points i've got to do something with. if only it was like weight watchers and i could spend them all on pizza...



unfortunately life isn't like weight watchers. it's not full of support and guide books and gold stars at every 10 (metaphoric) pounds you lose, so that's why for the next six months i'm going to spend my points here. on the internet. the internet. a fine place to hash out how my gears are working upstairs. a fine place to make a stranger feel better. a fine place for me to make my voice read, since it's hard for it to be heard. i've made some big ass strides in my life and i'm feeling pretty good, but what it all comes down to my friends, is i haven't got it all figured out just yet. so that's why i'm staring at this blue light at 1 a.m. with one hand in my pocket and the other on a keyboard. to think out loud (...you know what i mean). to offer advice. to complain. to be effusive. to be cynical. to be sympathetic. to pity. to be strong. to be ...brave? to get to a point where everything's just fine, fine, fine.



help me if you want. i'd be elated if i helped you.



p.s. special thanks to alanis morissette for being one of my first girl powered positive influences.