Who are You or What Does it Take to be an Adult?

I'm pretty proud of myself today. So many adult things done. Got an oil change on time, put more than twenty dollars worth of gas in the car. Just an all around great day . I have a hard time being what I would consider a real adult. When in a room of older people I feel like I'm not one of them. People that are in their fifties are the real adults. I'm just essentially an extended junior in high school. I don't know where this comes from but I know I've felt that way for a while. In my life I've generally made most of my decisions based on what I think others want me to do. For the longest time I've lacked the confidence to put real stock in myself and make decisions for me. That's a shitty feeling. And I have nobody to blame for this but myself. I've gotten much better at it within the last few years. But I still don't see myself as a full adult. I still try to fade into the background and don't take an upfront charge very often. I still get anxious about things from time to time. From the time I was a kid I kept myself busy reading writing and listening to music. When given the choice of spending time with other kids or sticking to myself I usually went solo. Generally there was this lack of enthusiasm for other people's company. I found much more interest in watching a movie and then reading about how it was made than going with the neighborhood kids to ride bikes.

 I was an anxious kid. Anxiety is born from an uneasiness with the unknown and I feel an inflexible nature to life in general. I can tell you for certain that I'm uncomfortable with change. That discomfort manifests itself in a routine that I stick to pretty heartily and once it is broken watch out.  Not surprisingly it's been a struggle. When I get stuck inside my head, which can happen fairly often, I find the best thing to do is take a minute and try to focus on something that I can control. Like my breathing. Now I can already hear you, "not another blog talking about meditation", but I'm not going to become spiritual here. I swear. Maybe a little bit I don't know. All I'm going to say is there are times when I feel concerned about my life, when I feel overwhelmed and the only thing I can do is breathe. I breathe in and count my exhales. When I focus on that my mind seems to reset and I feel a little better. It's like when you're a kid and you want to play Ducktales on Nintendo. You put the cartridge in and it doesn't work. Instead of sitting and spastically hitting the reset button and making yourself insane you turn it off blow in the cartridge and calmly put it back. My brain is like a Nintendo. Both were born in 1985 and both can be reset albeit not by blowing on my head. That would be weird. I've let anxiety rule my life for a long time. But why do that to myself? The breathing helps. It isn't a cure all and it isn't a miracle cure. What it does is give me a precious few moments to refocus myself. The most I've made it to was 30 and that's not so bad. It's half a minute. I think we can all spare half a minute of time every so often. Anxiety is an awful feeling. It's like hanging a giant weight with knives hanging from it all over your body.  Every prick of anxieties' touch is draining. Why do we do this to ourselves ? Why do we allow our brains to overload and stretch so much? That helpless feeling can be so difficult to get past. But there it is so often like an old friend you secretly but not so secretly hate. You know the one. The one who always comes by if there's beer but never brings any. The stories are good but not good enough to sit through the yelling and the spills and the nonsense. Your friend Kyle most likely. Or Tanner. They always have a name like that   A shift in priorities is a good way to alleviate anxiety. Changing your focus from the thing bothering you to something that you can work on and will benefit you directly. Or indirectly. Stop trying to get people to like you more and instead try working on being more attentive in conversations. Stop trying to buy people's attention and start instead focusing on people who have your best interests in mind. Don't strive for a big number of friends but rather on the quality of those relationships. If someone doesn't have your back or makes you feel like shit, get them out of your purview. Don't need em. They ain't helping you believe me. And if something feels shitty it probably is and your kind and body are trying to tell you. Retreating to Taco Bell won't help either no matter how much you think you want a chalupa. 

But I'll see you next time I need to do my emissions test and then buy myself an ice cream to congratulate myself.