Who Am I To Be Blue?

I was having coffee tonight with my new friend after work. He moved here about a year ago from Ohio. Somehow we got onto the topic of life and our journeys. More specifically, how we spend so much time comparing ours to everyone else's. As I drove away, my brain began racing with the questions that constantly plague me. I am 30, what are other 30 year olds doing? I began comparing the material things. What kind of cars are other people my age driving? There are other people my age buying houses, why am I still renting? Other people are using their college degrees towards successful and financially rewarding careers. Why didn't I go to college? Why am I still searching for a career? I began comparing my emotional needs. There are other people my age not only married, but expecting their first, sometimes second child. Why am I not even dating? I believe in God, but I don't congregate in church every week. Will I still be let into heaven like my friends who participate every Sunday?

Oh yeah, the thoughts were heavy this evening.

Coincidentally, after I got home, another friend, completely out of nowhere, called to ask me what would really excite me. What event or thing would really stimulate and excite me. He wanted to be a part of the first great moment of my 30's. Most importantly, he wanted me to be happy. His dinner companion arrived and we hung up. I didn't get to tell him what would excite me. An hour later, I still don't know the answer.

Living in Los Angeles, is different than any other city in the world. No one is from here. There is no pride in community because there is no community. Everyone has moved here for a reason, for their own purpose. With that said, everyone here has an agenda. Maybe to write a screenplay, maybe to be famous, maybe to be rich, maybe to be able to say that they eat at the same restaurant as Robert DeNiro. It is never because they love the sun, the hikes in the Hollywood Hills, or the pool of reliable friends from which they can swim. Those are all things overlooked.

Imagine trying to date in this environment. Imagine trying to not only survive, but thrive in this environment while still trying to own your soul and stay authentic to who you are. Most people aren't that strong and get swept up in the greed, swallowed by the loneliness and spit out soul less and hollow. I don't want to be one of these people.

I don't want to feel like a failure because other people my age own a house and I rent. I don't want to feel like a failure because my friends are married and I am not dating. I don't want to feel like a failure because my friends make millions of dollars a year and I scrape by on what is now considered poor middle class.

I want to learn to embrace my journey as my own. To not compare mine to others. Instead to compare to where I am from, where I have been, where I am, who I am, who I am continuously becoming. To instead tap into my soul and know who I am and envision who I want to be and living my life for me. Owning my mistakes and flaws along the way. I want to know what excites and stimulates me when my friends ask.

I want to remember how excited I used to be watching a Bette Midler concert in my living room. The adrenaline that coursed through my body when Madonna would release a new album. The alive feeling I felt when I would run around the Hollywood Reservoir with the Hollywood sign watching over me, welcoming me to it's gates. The overwhelming disbelief the first time I set foot on a movie set with Morgan Freeman delivering a White House Press Conference as the president of the United States, as I stood silently, convinced I had walked into someone else's shoes. The breathlessness I felt when Erin brought Joe into this world and the love I not only felt, but knew when I was invited to witness. The pride I felt the day I graduated High School. Accomplishment filled with wide-eyed possibility of the world ahead of me. I walked across the field that day, not worried about who was beating me on my journey or who who was winning. At that point, I never considered life as a race. I walked across that field that day knowing I was going to leave my mark and I couldn't wait to get started. When did my mind switch gears and decide that life wasn't to be lived and savored, but to be sped through with fear of being the last man standing.

A favorite quote of mine from Lily Tomlin is, "the trouble with winning the rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat". I need to stop racing and fearing that I am going to be last to cross the finish line. Life isn't a race, it is a constant circle. An endless journey. I need to go back to that focus of who I am and how I want to be remembered. I want to be in control of how I am remembered as people cross my footprints on their journey. Not to compare themselves, but to find inspiration to keep living. To want to leave their own mark.

It is time to go back to living my life for me, not worrying about how I measure up to everyone else.

It is amazing what meeting someone new can do for your memory. Self-reflection can be a healthy study in oneself to discover who you are and what you want to be.

Much heavier than I anticipated. Hoping it doesn't haunt me down the road that I am sharing it in my blog instead of my private diary...