Summer Number Twelve

My twelth summer in the Valley.

A customer today, upon asking where I was from and subsequently inquiring as to the tenure of my Arizona residency, further inquired if I could really still claim that I was “from” Orange County, California. Apparently, some people like to differientiate “from” um, from, the word “born,” and since I hath attended a portion of junior high, all of high school, and three (yup, three) different institutes of higher education all in the Phoenix area that maybe, just maybe, I should claim that I was “from” Phoenix.

Hmmm.

If I spent, say, a decade in Arizona and then moved back to California, or even to the Pacific Northwest, and I was asked “Where are you from?” I would skip the Arizona chapter entirely and say “here” or “California,” respectively. I’m not one of those overtly-witty fags who say something stupid like, “Well, ma’am, Garden Grove by the way of Gilbert!” with a snap and a wink.

So when this customer today asked me this, I informed him that I still had two more years in Arizona until I got to the break-even point of 50% of my life in sunny Orange County and 50% of my life in fuckingly-sunny Arizona. Once I get over the 50% range, I will simply say, “Around.”

So, to commemorate this twelth summer in the Valley, I haven’t blogged very much this last summer. Why? I certainly have no reason to whine – I know things are going a great deal harder for alot of people in this world (I’m talking about the poor and starving – not the live-beyond-your-means irresponsible suburbanites who are actively trying to blame the “Fat Cats on Wall Street” for their own financial choices), but this summer has been … trying. The way I felt about life in the last couple posts? Yup, still feel that way. I’m thinking through alot of things – and I cannot honestly remember the last fucking time I have been happy with my life. And I’m not blaming external factors. It’s all choices I’ve made, and remade, sometimes, over the last ten years. I accept full responsibility for all of my actions, and they were all choices I made – haven’t hurt anybody else – but I did all of these things because it’s what others wanted. Be it where I lived, who I was with, what job I worked at, how I spent my time, et cetera. I relinquished ownership these last ten years.

Stupidly, I have spent most of the summer lamenting those last ten years. But what now? I’m 26 – why does 17 feel like it had so much more potential? So I’m slowly – ever so slowly – trying to reorganize things in the way that will make ME happy. I’m not sure what this is all going to look like yet. But I am committed to living life how I want to – as cliche as that sounds. I’ll be damned if I’m sitting here at 36 feeling the same. That’s one reason I have been distant this summer – from the blog, my friends, even my family – it has been a mix of deep unhappiness, tiredness, and slow renewel. I’m not there yet, it’s going to be a progress. And I’ll keep this blog up to date on this progress.

But damn – I really wonder what my life would look like in even five years if I spent it living how I want to live?