How do you live?

I've been trying to figure that out. 

Somewhere along the way I slipped into sedation, anesthetized in doubt. I was obsessed with the ephemeral future and hung up on the uncomfortable past. Everywhere in all places but the present.

I’m certain that I’m not going to die anytime soon. That’s the beauty of youth. But maybe one day when you wake up, you think to yourself, What the fuck have I been doing this entire time?

This whole starving artist thing, it’s not working out. I’m doing a lot of starving and not a lot of art.

Bounced between shitty part-times. Fast food, retail, tutoring. Even taste-tested cigarettes once. It was a brutal few months. Got paid like shit. Didn't even get paid, one time. Eventually I didn’t even have enough to paint anymore, so I began writing again.

I spent hours recording the terribly mundane, searching for ways to express a beauty that couldn’t be captured in paintings or photographs, but which I was so sure was there.

In the end, only the things that really matter ever get written down. Everything else that fades into the background, it was never worth keeping around in the first place.

I've been surrounding myself with people older than me. Eyeing what others say or do, what their lives are like. Realizing that people with years on you aren't suddenly enlightened, they're still trying to work things out too. 

It's relieving, in a way. Knowing that when I get there, I don't have to have it all figured out either.

Time offers distance and in turn perspective. Mountains once insurmountable are now specks in the rear-view mirror. You think that telling other people your life story will relieve the pressure, like steam in a kettle. Mostly, you're uncomfortably oversharing.

So how do you live?

Honestly, I don't know yet. But some things are becoming more clear. I wrote a list, and of the things on that list, I highlighted one: 

Stop doing things that make you dislike yourself.

I've cut down on everything, holding myself to a hybrid sobriety. The vices I have yet to kill are cigarettes, the occasional drink, and ear-shatteringly loud techno on Saturday nights.

When I meet people, I make an effort to talk, to say something that matters, to have a real conversation with the person across from me, even if I know I'll never see them again.

It's not easy. Sometimes I'll fuck up and find myself slipping back into silence. It takes everything to remind myself that a small mistake is just that. I try, because I want to, because I have to.

So maybe my world was wrong.

I've decided to rebuild mine. I build my world with

shared smoke breaks between DJ sets

heads on shoulders on the last train home

drunken calls in the backseats of taxis to long-distance friends

albums full of pictures of people I love

and an iPod shuffle with my favorite songs.