We are fixed right where we stand

[grrltastic]

Lately, I feel very in control of my life. The significance of this is not lost on me, and I find myself marveling at how different this is from the complete tailspin I was in just four years ago.

Part of the paperwork included in accepting my first internship rotation was to compile my last 10 years' worth of work history. This involved digging through old pay stubs and diary entries. I got to walk backwards through my move from Austin, getting fired from Heart of Texas, losing my family at AECCT, getting divorced. And then before that: getting married, fucking up a succession of shitty dead-end jobs when I first moved to Texas, and taking the first big steps to leave Iowa back when it was the only place I'd ever really been.

I got to revisit the very tail end of 10 years ago, the middle of 2005, when I thought my life was falling apart for the very first time. And it was, in some senses. The restaurant I'd worked at for the last 3 years had just closed, and I was manic and desperate and trying to find anything that represented a direction for my life to take in the absence of any real skills or goals. I was rapidly alienating everyone around me and had no idea how to stop.

 

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On a Wednesday afternoon back in the spring of 2011, I was riding bikes with friends. I rode a lot, then, and I rode almost strictly for pleasure, so I would load up my iPod shuffle with a mix of whatever suited my mood. It was mostly a bunch of hipster bullshit: Cibo Matto, OutKast, Arcade Fire, Beach House, Kings of Leon, Missy Elliott, The XX, Sleater Kinney, Edward Sharpe, Ratatat, Bikini Kill.

That particular day, as we rode up a hill just east of I-35, my friend Adam asked what I was listening to. "Modest Mouse," I told him. "Because I'm finally old and bitter enough to really relate to the lyrics."

That statement was very true in the midst of that shitstorm of a life stage, and it's equally true now:

"As life gets longer, awful feels softer;
well, it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss
then I feel pretty blissfully."

Modest Mouse - The View

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So it's interesting to me to think that 2010 was as far away from now as 2005 was in 2010. And it's interesting that in that same sense, 5 years can feel like nothing and 10 years can feel like eons. But the most interesting is the way that all of these distinct people are still me, and they are all still very much within me.

If I try, I can still tap that desperate, terrible lostness of being 21. So I absolutely understand the significance of knowing that I am safe, and feeling that I have control over my life. I know how much that means.