Learning

There's no starting over, no going back. Our lives stretch forward before us endlessly and heavy with promise only once. I am not that fifteen-year-old boy anymore. I won't be him again. I'm myself now, only.

But the future still stretches on, long past my dreams and fears, and far into a future that I am not a part of. But some 15-year-old boy will be a part of that future. And if I play my cards right, maybe he'll read my book.

Maybe he'll read my book and realize his life is already sand through the hour glass, and that he must run and fight and love and make beautiful mistakes with goodness in his heart, before his time runs out too. So much sand falling forever, forever, forever, until...

Another Year

Keats Island, September 2010

I've spent the last few weeks cozied up in Dalston at K and O's flat. I love them so much, and am so thankful for the hospitality they have shown me. I spent the Christmas holidays alone, for the first time ever. More out of choice, than necessity - there were people in London I could have spent it with. Instead, I spent the days cooking, drinking nice wine, going on snow walks, watching films, reading, writing, prioritising. It was a working holiday, in a sense, and I think it laid a good foundation to move forward from.

Being in Hackney has been a godsend. I've been waiting so long to live here, and it just feels so right. Staying with K and O has also been part of that, because I love them so much, and they really did welcome me into a 'home' for the time I was here. I'm leaving tomorrow, though - subletting a friend's room in Waterloo for the month of January.

After that, who knows, really? It is scary not knowing where one is going to hang one's hat a month from now. Or how one will pay the bills, stay afloat. I've been living under that sky of uncertainty for a while now, and you sort of surrender yourself to it, to a blind hope that things will work out. But it doesn't get any easier. You just learn to have faith and to not think too much about how scary it all is, about what happens with opportunities dry up and the generosity of friends runs out.

Not that January is going to change anything, just because another year has clocked in, but I do have hope that the new year will be a good one. The time for playing games is over, and I've got to grab life by the balls and press on. I think I'm less inclined to the bullshit and timidity I've had before about my talents and abilities, and that's a good thing. I know that life doesn't get handed to you on a platter. The idea that success and progress come quickly and easily is long lost in the idealism of my youth. I know it all comes down to work hard and making your own opportunities. I'm ready.

I know now, more than ever, what I want, and what I can do. I know sacrifices have to be made, and occasionally compromises. I also know that - as a passionate being with a highly moralised view of the universe and my life - I'm more inclined to sacrifice than compromise. That's something many people in my life can't understand, but I do think in the long run that may make all the difference.

2011 is going to be, hopefully, about hard work, about being truthful - to myself, to my talents and passions, and to the people in my life. I spent half the year being tortuously in love with someone I couldn't tell because I have always lived my life with unnecessary conscience. Conscience is important, but sometimes, when push comes to shove, we've just got to live.

Things I want to do less of this year: medicating, hiding, procrastinating, smoking, doubting, complaining, settling.

Things I want to do more of this year: writing, reading, networking, socialising, earning, corresponding, learning, running, risking, loving, succeeding.