Originally I'd been numbering these posts by days I'd been thirty. So the day after last year's birthday was Day 1 and so on. Somehow I've managed to get up to 366 and there's still a few days to go until I turn thirty-one. Which means somewhere along the way I couldn't count right. Which sort of sums up the way the year's gone I suppose. Someone asked me if I didn't feel like celebrating this year because it felt like a lost year. I said that wasn't the reason. I'm not big into birthdays anyway. Last year was big, because we were entering another decade, but after that, eh.

And it would be unfair to say this has been a lost year. It's been really good. Trips to North Carolina, DC, and Seattle. Living in San Francisco for a few months. Paying rent (that wasn't so hot). My first bachelorette party. Attending five really important weddings, with another one still to come. We had a great Tahoe trip in February. My book released in May. I've met some new friends and one in particular that has been indispensable, even if we haven't been able to talk as much recently. Most of the year has been drama free and all of it has been job free. So yeah, it's been good.

But I feel a sense of having not accomplished much. After giving it some thought, what it came down to is that I feel pretty much exactly the same as I did last year. I'm only jokingly naive enough to think that turning thirty magically signifies some change but in my mind I thought I would use the opportunity to advance myself. To grow, to alter, to bloom. So far, no dice. It's not a New Year so unmet resolutions could still happen but if I'm measuring based on another flip of my personal calendar, then I feel really unfulfilled.

It's a feeling I'm not very familiar with or comfortable with. Like I'm antsy, but only in spare moments. I guess usually I'm very happy being somewhere in-between half empty and half full. But this year has been different. I feel malaise. I feel wasteful. I feel...different.

I also feel extremely fortunate to have been able to hang out in San Francisco for so long, with no muss and no fuss, and to kind of know the city -- as long as it's somewhere in a direct line between the Mission and the Marina. But I've not fallen in love with it and there's no sense of attachment aside from the friend family here. I guess the past two years I've had New York in the summer to catapult me into the rest of the year. This year I've not gone to New York yet so anything could still happen. However, it's safe to say that location isn't necessarily the solution.

The problem is within. As are the answers I guess. I kind of feel like I flipped my house but the furniture is all still the same. Or maybe it's the other way around. Anyway, happy thirty-first.

2 comments

1. Dhonielle Clayton on September 5, 2009 at 5:06 PM

   i feel the same way.... and i hate that i haven't been able to come out there for some DDT. i've had too much to do, too little time, and the inability to get it all done. new york invigorates me as well. i got the opportunity to work for a week there this summer and got a little of my mojo back...i'm thinking i'll spend the entire summer there next year.
   
   but the malaise has descended and i feel different. i don't like the people i used to, don't enjoy the same things and i'm looking for something new. perhaps we need a visit from an alien or something...

    
2. jonyangorg on September 8, 2009 at 4:41 AM

   Hum, we apparently need to discuss and talk and commiserate. I need my mojo back too... Let's go find an alien, or at least write about one.