And now it’s time for a little selfishness. I don’t mean that in a “give me all the coconuts” sort of way… but if you know that you want something bad enough, you’ll find a way to get it, and that process is always a little bit selfish—and by that, I mean selfish with your time. Time begins to have more weight. You find that you need more of it, and more control over who you give it to. 

The greatest challenge for following your own ambitions and seeing them through is to do so without becoming a complete and total jerk/bitch/douchebag and a half. I do not want to be 35 and screaming into a phone, cursing at baristas, and stealing cabs from old ladies. And what’s scary is that I can see myself becoming like that (okay, maybe not exactly like that. I may tap my foot at a barista). Because getting what you want can be a scary thing. “Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true… isn’t it?” But once again, the cure for not becoming a bitchy, jerky, douche and a half is to strive for a good sense of balance in your life (work, play, mind, body, rest, being grateful), even if it ends up driving you a little crazy. 

Now, what’s even more interesting and slightly fucked up is that at some point, you’ll get to see the worst and most hated parts of yourself (I’ve had a glimpse). One day, you find yourself in that moment where your emotions are escalating like a hardon and you will just snap; or you are forced to make a decision and you go with the one that challenges every fibre of your moral compass, but—damn it—you’ve had it so hard and it would feel so good to just do whatever it is, just this once, because you deserve a break. Who will know?

And it will keep you up at night. 

Oh, the guilt. In another life, I would have been a perfect Catholic. 

If it weren’t for all that sodomy. 

It’s never happened to me before, but all I remember is the feeling of missing someone, like they had just been taken from me, or had left me. I don’t even remember the person or who he was—I just remember opening my eyes, sobbing, trying to breathe, and a flood of emotions that paralyzed my brain for a few seconds. 

What’s the subtextual message, brain?

and I just woke up with this pit of anxiety in my stomach.

There is so much fear and self doubt right now inside of me and I have no idea where it is coming from.  All through high school I had dreams that I wanted to pursue. I threw all my energy into my studies and extracurricular’s; and I did well. I worked my ass off for what I wanted and I always got it. And then I got rejected from every university that I applied to for theatre, film and photography.

I don’t think I ever really recovered from all of those rejections. I feel like as if deep down there’s still this silent fear that subconsciously keeps me from really trying for anything… being the bold guy I used to be who took charge of his life. I have been trying so hard to recapture that drive and motivation, Rachel-Berry-esque even but I have no idea where it went after high school.

I feel like I’d do well in teachers college, but one of my former educators, who is now also my friend told me in grade 12 to never become a High School teacher because I would be settling if I did.

Is this what everyone feels? Like as if we might be bound for greatness, but just with no idea if we’ll ever get there? All of us with dreams that we never really achieve, and then just realize that it’s better to just… get your shit together and do the 9 to 5.

There goes another lemming.

The “roaring twenties”. The “gay twenties”. Oh what a wonderful time to be alive and in your twenties; with the world at your feet, the possibilities are endless, no?

As I navigate through this period of nothingness while trying to create some sense of something, I am plagued by more questions and less answers than I’d normally like to be. Usually it would make for excellent writing fodder, but for a while I had nothing to say. I was paralyzed with my thoughts and not being able to get them out was like being constipated—you know it’s there but it just ain’t coming out. 

One thing that was really stuck on my mind this weekend was that atrocious bill, trying to make it legal to kill all of the homosexuals in Uganda. I kept on thinking about how fucking horrible that is, how disgusting and offensive and horrifying. How are we letting this happen? How could anyone possibly hate someone so much, that they would want to kill them? And of course, they are using religion as an answer for murder because in the name of honor, worship and “goodness”, murder is totally cool! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY ABSURD! And all I want to do is shout and scream and yell and donate everything I have to the cause—but then I get sidetracked by how unbelievably futile everything I want to do is because every time I talk to my friends or family about my politics, they have nothing to say except for “well, what’s the point of thinking about it? You can’t do anything about it.” Because let’s face it, I’m a broke graduate with no job, no real prospects at the moment except for my “writing” and really, what good is that going to do for the gays who are living in terror and fear in Uganda? Here I am, bitching about my “career” as a ‘writer” and it all seems so inconsequential when people all over the world are fighting just to live.

And all of my work sucks. Insert pout, angry eyes and an angry storm-off.

I mean, honestly now, the chances of me creating something absolutely original and groundbreaking are pretty slim to none. So what’s the point? Why am I doing this? Why do I sit here and spend all this time thinking about stories and characters and moments? Revealing parts of myself to the entire world, people who I will most likely never meet? Why do we do any of this stuff?

Because the people around us aren’t enough.

We need to know who else is out there so we know that we’re not alone.

We need to feel a sense of kinship and community; love and strength borrowed and returned, ideas recycled for someone else to make anew.

Tonight, my good friend Jessica told me during a conversation about life and God and whether or not He exists, “I think the real miracle is that life happens, I mean, after D-Day, life happened. Under all of these horrible circumstances life still happens.”

Suddenly I felt much better. I felt great swell of emotion and I was once again invigorated with a sense of duty to pursue my dreams. I thought about being proactive and then I envisioned myself writing furiously at a coffee shop, reading intensely with my eyebrows all furrowed and serious on a couch in a coffee shop, me watching some indie-music-band-dude play acoustic guitar at some coffee shop and and then with no explanation whatsoever of what happens between the coffee shop and this next clip of myself in my mind, I’m walking into a big open loft with my own photo studio where I also have a small office set up for me to do my writing because I am a writer, selling my words for a pay cheque, everyday amazed that people pick up what I write and produce and for some weird, cosmic, unexplainable reason, believe in it and can relate to it.

And then share it on tumblr.

Because we make life happen.

Sometimes we get to a point where it just seems incredibly futile—going after the dreams we would spend hours imagining and re-imagining away in our minds, only to find that with every passing day, the once possible was becoming increasingly impossible. Dreams we never dared speak of; and every night we leave them to the pillows that cradle our head. 

It’s becoming clearer to me that for many of my elders, the road to happiness was one that was paved over the sad and desperate debris of the past. 

The things we give up, the things we lose and the things we do to ensure our own happiness. 

Pretty soon, we’ll all understand why our parents did what they did.