Each year, I publish a blog post before or after my birthday as a quick recollection on my last year on this rock flying through space. Each year, I re-read what I wrote 12 months ago and laugh saying under my breath, “what an idiot.” That idiot isn’t me. It can’t be me. In fact, I’m a new me every second. The person that wrote that last sentence is gone and this person is brand new. Every day, I change so much that I can’t weigh in on what I wrote yesterday with a scale because so much has changed. Change is inevitable and I embrace that. The only constant is change.
On August 26th, I turned 24 and this blog post reflecting the last year was pushed back because I was making a trip across country to start new. Friends have called this the “clean slate approach” and many friends say I do this far too often. I disagree because I believe that even when you’re reborn as a child, you’re carrying over the experiences that you had in the previous life. I believe that you’re a better being- that you’re an evolved being – that you’ve learned something. I’ve learned a few things in the past 12 months but it would have been unfair to attempt a squeeze of all the knowledge and thoughts into a blog post in the midst of saying goodbye to San Francisco and my best friends. I would have rushed this. Today, after completing my first week at mynew job, I’m ready to chat a bit about my last 12 months as a 23 year old.
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Last year’s post was a precursor to my breakup with Laura. These lyrics come to mind:
Gravity is working against me
And gravity wants to bring me down
Oh, I’ll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away
I don’t think it’s fair to Laura that I re-hash everything. Friends of mine like Nick, Ben, Jessica, Kolin, Lauren and one or two others know the full story. They know a lot of what occurred after that breakup. For me, it was both good and bad. The person I am today would be completely different had I stayed with her. Where I am, what I’m doing and who my friends are. Even the bonds with my Father and how our relationship has grown is directly affected by my decision to become a single man. I’m happy with who I’ve become. I’m happy with where I am in life as a whole and I do feel good with myself. It doesn’t mean I don’t have regrets.
It’s been 1 year and 3 weeks since Laura and I split up. It took that long to be okay with waking up alone every morning. It may be a little longer before I’m okay with going to sleep alone at night. To those reading this who feel I’m immature for saying that, you’re either older, your spirit has been around a bit longer or your life situation isfar different. It’s okay for you to feel that way and move on. For me, I went from a quiet, geeky person…the overachiever who was teacher’s pet and traveling to trade shows on “business” at the age of 15 to immediately moving in with a woman right after high school. She and I shared our lives for the next 4 years and even moved across country together. The act of separation after going through so much together was tough. I won’t deny that.
Our bond was real and I regret not cultivating the plant longer. At the time, my decision to become single was selfish and immature but was appropriate at the time and a decision that I feel was the right one for me at that moment. It lead to a lot of learning about myself. Even on my last day in San Francisco before moving to New Hampshire, Laura and I had dinner like we were old friends because we were old friends. I am still very much in love with her and I certainly haven’t moved on but, as a man who is a year older, I knew the most appropriate act was to make this move across country and understand that for us both to grow, we have to continue on our current path. Life.
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The last 12 months have forced me to evolve in a way I never expected. I finally wised up and began internalizing things my Father has taught me since I was a young boy. My radical life changes, decision to take a vacation, dive in to photography (1, 2, 3), reading books and news outside of tech, traveling for the hell of it and taking risks. In fact, reviewing my posts from the past year compared to the previous year and it’s so apparent how much has changed.
Would you believe that this Adam has been going home at 5:00PM every day from work, hitting the gym and going home and cooking a meal for himself? Would you believe that this Adam took a cooking class and bartending class? Would you believe that this Adam calls his Mom twice a week? Would you believe me if I told you that new tech stuff came out (iPhone 4 and iPad) and I finally upgraded after a few months of waiting and didn’t wait in line?
That’s a taste of me compared to a year ago and if you read that post I linked to at the top of this, you’d see a new person. I’m sure that in another year, I’ll be even more different. Who knows if it will be good or bad. It’ll be me at that moment and I’ll embrace that person.
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Something interesting I’ve discovered is my fear of experiences does get the best of me. It’s something first uncovered by friends and family that I’ve finally embraced. I won’t get into specific instances. Having new experiences is a part of growing older. At 21, did you say to yourself that you’d never have a broken heart? Did you ever say to yourself that you’d never go through a divorce or file for bankrupcy or be there as your kid fell of his bike and broke his arm? Did you ever imagine you’d be broke or homeless or jobless? Did you ever think at 21 that you’d ever have to worry about retirement or how to pay for college for your kids? Did you think you’d ever wake up and after a doctor visit find out you had cancer? Did you ever think you’d never have regret after a one night stand?
Me neither.
However, my answer to these questions was not to wait and see. My answer was to proactively shelter, shield and protect myself from ever experiencing these things. I’d save my money, I would eat non-cancer causing foods and I’d never ever ever talk to a girl even if I really liked her because…well that’s a longer explanation. Basically, I’ve only randomly talked to one girl in my life who didn’t start talking to me first. That girl was Laura and we dated for a long time. I’ve known her for almost 5 years. My fear with talking to a girl starts with rejection and ends in divorce. I’m a planner and it gets the best of me. My fears start with her ignoring me to getting caught in a one night stand (something I never want to experience) going forward to the complications of dating, moving in together, getting married, having kids and one day us getting a divorce or losing her in a car accident. This all goes through my mind before I even ask her what she’s drinking.
I never wanted to experience what I have no matter what the result. I never wanted to move across country twice or break up with Laura and go through that pain of separation and the pain of starting over. I never wanted to deal with gaining weight as a result of working long hours and never wanted to deal with the complications of making a close friend and having to call them from time to time to maintain the friendship.
Part of this stems from being an only child for part of my life, being someone who’d rather hunker down into a laptop screen than participate in school classes (i used a laptop all 4 years of high school) and being someone who was never into sports and avoided conflict whenever possible.
For the person I’ve profiled above, this year has truly tested me. I was forced through intentional roadblocks and nonintentional ones to go through a lot. There was a time when I was working for a company that couldn’t pay me for 4 weeks after I spent all of my savings on a trip so I was broke when they said, “for the next 4 weeks, we can’t give you money.” I still, to this day, haven’t asked family members for money. I stood strong, got an extension on my rent and my online excuse for “fasting” for 15 days was to work on my health when it was really a result of having no food to eat because I was literally broke. I didn’t eat a thing for 3 weeks because I couldn’t buy food.
To that person I profiled above, living a completely single life was a challenge. Of course, to everyone who told me, “you’re a single guy in SF, you’re going to have a ball!”, well they were wrong. Instead, I spent the last year truly being single. No rebound, no one night stands, no flings. I made some great friendships, finished a few books, went to the gym and taught myself how to cook. I didn’t use sex, clubbing or heavy drinking as a way to cope with being alone for the first time in my life. I worked on myself. I’d be lying to say it wasn’t easy but the Adam I am today is a direct result of saying, “fuck it. you’re single now. deal with it.” where so many of my friends coped with ending a measly 6-month relationship by going out and hooking up with women. That’s not the answer. A quick high the natural or artificial way is no way to cope with ANYTHING in life.
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In the past year, I took a break from sharing everything online. I went from tweeting 20K per year to only about 12K this year. I took 2 whole months off Twitter and Facebook at the start of the year. I started a very private blog to speak frankly about life with a readership of zero as my way to express myself honestly for the first time in years. It was great and fun and real.
I also traveled less this year for business. I took two road trips for fun and went to Miami on vacation. I’ve been to Florida to see family 3 times so far and a 4th time will be in December. That’s 4 times in 12 months. These personal vacations took priority over trips to tech conferences. I missed some networking chances but look where I ended up. I’m at a great job in a beautiful part of the country with immense opportunities to make a difference more than ever before. Skipping SXSW didn’t keep me from doing something great in 2010. It was just extra and something you don’t have to attend.
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Humans are incredibly agile. We can cope, evolve, learn and blend. We can take pain both physical and mental and our body keeps going. Pain makes us feel alive. It keeps us alive. Without pain, depression, stress and fear creeps up on us. We have to continue pressuring ourselves to evolve and stay agile or else we cease to exist. We just perish.
The man I am today is a direct result of what I put myself through last year. Regrets are simply a part of life. We can be freed of regret through training and by realizing the positive affects of our actions.
I can still and always will be able to shed a tear for the person I used to be. The person who loved a woman who he left – the person who sacrificed his health to network and work long hours at the office – the person who lived the fast life and had no regrets. Just writing this line chokes me up a bit because I tried so hard in the past year to hold on to who I thought I was without growing or pushing forward. I miss that Adam quite a bit mostly because I was comfortable. I let everything unfold without doing my part to evolve and make things better….I was Adam the fearful. I was Adam the comfortable.
Despite easily being able to shed a tear for last year’s Adam. I have less fear, less comfort and more hope than that Adam. I have regrets that are counter-balanced by some amazing adventures. I lost a person who I truly loved but in that pain, I learned to love myself. I grew beyond my expectations especially considering I didn’t have any expectations when this year started.
What’s next? Life – until life stops and then it’ll start again. That’s life.
Everyone that I’ve met in passing or have been lucky enough to be loved by has influenced me in ways I didn’t think were possible. I’m grateful to everyone that has taken the time to ask me how my day is going. for reading this, you help complete me a little bit and we’re forever connected and I appreciate that.
there’s much more to learn and I hope … no I’ll see if I’m still around with the ability to share with you what age 24 held for me. Maybe I go on to do amazing things (by my standards) or maybe an accident happens and I can no longer do my job. Maybe I fall in love again and maybe I continue at my current trend which is no dating and no physical contact with others. Maybe I lose a leg in a skiing accident or I might not. It doesn’t matter. I’ll cry and then I’ll laugh. That’s life.
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Thank you for reading. It means the world to me.