Welcome back, fearless readers! As 2018 is creeping closer by the day, I’ve found myself actively reminiscing on my past. Not only this past year, which was terrible and grand, but my entire pseudo-adult life.

I turned 25 a few weeks ago, and am rather discontent with my achievements this quarter. So in the past few months, I have made it a point to be mindful, to actually sit down and meditate, become engrossed in the decisions I have made, why I made them and how they make me feel.

The sun hasn’t risen yet in Tuscaloosa. It’s been dark for many months, and I am finally at odds with it. I am far from ease with where I am in life. I’ve felt this feeling many times before; when I left Fort Wayne, when I left Warsaw, when I left my wife, and now I feel it in Alabama.  This empty feeling drains me until I tackle them. Like a vampire, I sucked the life out Indiana, the friends I made there and the people I left behind. They have nothing left for me right now. And I’m beginning to think the same of Tuscaloosa.

All of those aforementioned people and places have been wonderful, beneficial in the sense that I am now an older person. I can’t say better morally or financially or as happiness is concerned, but older and more weathered. That’s progress to me. They shaped me, moved me to new ideas, new goals and new lows. So the only left is to go higher right? Right.

In all his travels, my idol Christopher McCandless (Into The Wild) deduced that “The core of mans’ spirit comes from new experiences.” I have taken this to heart, and now only seek true novel experiences. But while experiencing experiences leads to more experience, I think that if one doesn’t understand and appreciate them, they are fruitless.

So like I said, I’ve been starring at the mirror, looking at the past that put those marks on my skin and bags under my eyes. Why do I feel this way now? Well, since I moved to Alabama I have not had a real career. Best Buy was fine, and I do enjoy my bartending gig, but it’s just not for me. I long to be professional again. To interview someone with a story worth telling, to inform people about the news they actually need to know. While I’m ankle deep in tow novellas and run a terrible blog, I need more than this. I have been reading regularly, writing up to 30 minutes a day and designing when I can, so I am improving.

I have a good friend who works harder than most people I know. She is younger than I, yet has put forth more effort into where she is now than I ever have. She works hard and plays hard, for lack of a better phrase, and seems satisfied with that.

That’s a yuuuge issue for me. I don’t work hard. I’m an avid dreamer but a lazy worker. “But no more!” He says as he logs back onto Twitter. I spend a lot of time not moving forward because it’s so damn difficult. These fingers are heavy. Before writing a blog earlier this year, i sobbed for several hours. Writing isn’t easy for me. While I like to think I’m decent at it, dare I say good, its a workout. Just like a runner is tired after a workout and has to recharge, being emotionally open with all of the internet takes a lot out of me. So I’m trying to be in better shape. I’m trying to strike these keys with ease to please me, writing frees me, it unleashes all the word jumbles in my head.

Now I haven’t composed a list of what I have taken away from this year, but it is coming. This isn’t even a blog for you. It’s for me. It’s putting the key into the ignition. I want to be rolling down the road as soon as I can. I am actively doing my best to leave Tuscaloosa. I’m applying to newspapers and radio stations across the map. I want to pack up my truck, put my dog in the cab and move on. But it’s not because I don’t love it here, I do, and the people that love me too. But I need new experiences, ones in my field of work  where I can get more tools to work with.

Jack Kerouac is a man I am attempting to shape my life after. He once said “Isn’t this the time to start following what I know to be true?” It is time, Jack. He also said ” it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

So long and take it easy,

Chris