here we go again.

“Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder, children get older
I’m getting older too”
— “Landslide,” by Stevie Nicks



Sometimes I freak out when I see young children,
Teetering and scuttling about,
And realize, that at some point, they’ll be my age,
And I’ll be older.

My twenty-five year old friend was frantically telling me today
About how once you reach your twenties,
Time starts accelerating at an alarming rate
And that gauge called your age
Starts creeping higher and higher
And you keep getting older all the more quickly
And it’s absolutely terrifying.

I used to joke about being ready to retire
And how thrilled I was, anticipating spending the rest of my days
Either, a: sitting out on the front porch,
Chain-smoking and sipping from a tall glass of lemonade and vodka
And shaking my cane at the neighborhood children
Or, b: rolling around on the living room floor,
Fucked up on painkillers.
And then I realized,
Those were activities I already frequently partake in,
Minus the cane shaking,
And, given the current state of absolutely everything in America
I’m probably never going to retire.

Fuck.



And
My eyes are getting worse.
I’m slowly getting more blind.
I have my first floater.
It’s brown
And annoying.

I’m too young to feel old;
Am I too old to be young again?

My friend’s mother, who is dying in the hospital—
Whose only motivation, it seems, in her desperate state,
To stay alive is to get off of bed rest, in ten to twelve weeks,
So that she may sit out in the sunroom at the nursing home—
Joked about how exhilarating it was
To be wheeled around in the hall,
Because being confined to her bed
Was driving her insane,
Except I think that deep down, she was being dead serious.

She’s too young to die;
Her daughter is too young to not have a mother.



Also,
In 140 characters or less,
Can somebody please tell me:
Where the fuck did this year go?

@Zach mourning over a lost lover, driving, analyzing & reporting, folding paper birds, self-medicating, dwelling, drinking, writing, art-ing(?)

(tweeting?)

Semi-productive, at best.



There’s so much more I should be doing.


Fuck.


What?
What’s that you say?
The new year starts tomorrow?

Double fuck.


I keep forgetting that
Time stops for no one.
And
Once again
We find ourselves
Lifting our glasses
And sharing a toast
Because the new year is coming, whether we like it or not
(whether we’re ready for it, or not):

Here’s to the new year.
Here’s to fresh starts.
Here’s to productivity.
Here’s to civility.
Here’s to humility.
And to graciousness.

Here’s to stopping making up excuses for other people.
Here’s to stopping making up excuses for myself.
Here’s to mending fences.
Here’s to falling back in it again.
And to knowing my own worth.

Here’s to getting the fuck over it.
Here’s to decency.
Here’s to not waiting around for other people to change.
Here’s to baking a cake for someone who actually wants it.
Here’s to falling in love with someone who can return the favor.
Here’s to finding someone who actually gives a shit about me,
And not settling for anything less.

Here’s to love.
Here’s to meeting someone who can appreciate me for who I am,
Not for who I could potentially become.
To meeting someone who doesn’t think I have growing to do,
That my feet aren’t too small for the shoes I’m trying to fill.

Here’s to reading more.
Here’s to writing more.
Here’s to art.

Here’s to throwing caution to the wind.

Here’s to dancing,
Here’s to singing at the top of my lungs,
Here’s to jamming.

Here’s to cutting myself some well-deserved slack.
Here’s to letting go.

Here’s to Lady Gaga
And to the aliens.


Here’s to my friends,
Here’s to new beginnings,
And making it count.



Fuck, here we go again.