update at 26 years of age

Here I am, still listening to Lisa Loeb's 'Snow Day' and yeah, it isn't failing to pick me up. I think certain songs fill honeycomb spaces in our hearts and stick there as soundtrack of choice for specific moods and situations. This is how we become old-fashioned with our music: Songs take a role in our lives, they're never replaced, and along with them, we become dated. How 90's of me... And how odd to realize that the decade of my pre-20's youth now has the same musty flavor the 80's did when I was teeny-bopping to Nirvana and Alanis Morrisette. Cycles... Everything in waves.

Nostalgia is one of my favorite vices and now, being 26, the years of my life thinned in a further-expanded catalogue of memories, I want to indulge in nostalgia even more, ironically unable to recall things with the same vividness and ease. But where did I come from, where am I now, and where am I going to? This is how I operate, even when I paint and write: constant pauses for the sake of review and a steadier march forward into God-knows-what.

So here I am again, not too different from the 16-year-old version of myself, still curled up in my room, being introspective, and listening to Lisa Loeb's 'Snow Day' to cheer myself up a bit - only I'm 10 years older, I'm not in school, I pay rent to live in the room I'm in, and an actual snow day is happening outside my frosted window. I'm in a reciprocal relationship with a responsible person who loves me to the point where he's offering to cover my mother's medical bills when his mother and father aren't doing too well themselves. And we've been together over a year, making this not only the biggest, most mature, and real interaction I've had but also the longest. Don't ever let anyone tell you that drunken rebound sex can't lead to something infinitely more substantial... We're talking 'moving in', sometimes 'marriage' comes up. Who knows?

And I'm independent. I have a slightly menial job working as a barista in a cafe but it's got integrity and I'm already being trained to be assistant manager despite still being probationary. I feel proud to work for a cooperative that believes in "people and the planet before profits" and promotes Fair Trade, ecologically-responsible, local and organic products. I have great benefits, a solid health plan that covers even massages and acupuncture, and an opportunity to easily become part owner of this company.

All in all, I'm living a version of my life that's very close to how I pictured an awesome life could be, except it's freezing cold outside, I'm not as creatively and artistically involved as I'd like to be, my best friends and closest family members are far away, I'm not the most financially stable guy in the world, and I don't have a dog. Sometimes I think about all of this stuff and my brain just starts to buzzzzzz.... What's going on? Where am I? Where am I heading?

I'm not sure. But I think I'm okay. I'm still reading, even though I haven't written anything worth printing, I'm still painting, even though I haven't had a solo show since October 2006, I haven't applied to any of the schools I've been interested in attending but I've learned a great deal about domestic basics, food, drinks, and the cafe/restaurant business, I've learned the value of a dollar, taken a good hard look at economics in the real world from enduring a paycheque-to-paycheque, living-for-the-weekend existence where most of my savings go back to the Philippines to help my family, I have a blossoming relationship with someone I love and respect, I have glowing guides to steady my hand and steel my heart during the harder battles, I've grown up quite a bit, and even though I don't have a dog, I have lots of green plants and a thriving school of guppies and that's a good start.

I'm 26, it's a snow day, and I'm not too tired in this life and it's not gonna matter if I fall down twice.