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I won’t waste time recounting the crazy year I’ve had. Suffices to say, it’s a year where I quit my job, ended a long-running relationship, survived an epic snowstorm, moved, and began a new creative existence. It’s telling how busy and insane this year has been, in that I can’t even remember what I was doing on my birthday last year. That’s gotta be the hallmark of a good year, right? Or a really bad drug problem. 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, about my life and how it got to this point, whether it’s all serendipitous or arbitrary, whether I feel inspired or petulant, whether this all has been the best or worst thing I could have done for myself. Honestly, I’m not sure. I’ve gotten to work with some amazing people over the past year, I released a real album (a lifelong dream), I performed on stage to a crowd, I’ve had strangers tell me that they love and appreciate the things I put out there. I’ve gotten to create things I’m insanely proud of. The highs are unspeakably awesome. The gratitude I have for the people who’ve supported me and enjoy the things I make, I could never truly reduce it to words in some measly blog post. 

But with the highs come the lows of doubt, pessimism, and fear. For the first time in my life, in VERY literal terms, my life is not set on some set of rails. The future is completely cloudy. For the first time, I have to worry about that kind of stuff. And it’s terrifying, both in the big-picture, survival way, and also in the man-now-I-can’t-afford-those-sneakers superficial way. And a part of me is worried that it really won’t work out, and I just chose age 30 as the year that I pushed the reset button on my life, creating innumerable difficulties for the years up ahead. 

These are the things that come when I slow down long enough to let the thoughts start to fester inside of my head. Because most days, I’m simply too busy to think about it. And as I lay out the plan for the next year in front of me, I realize that a lot of work has to be done, but a lot of fun is going to be had. And when I push past all the stress and worry, I get excited. I honestly can’t wait. It’s going to be one hell of a ride. 

My mantra in life is this: you have to cut out as much noise as possible to try to hear what the universe is trying to tell you. Most people refuse to listen, because it means confronting the fact that they’re unhappy, that changing things would be too difficult, myself included even still. But I’ve been trying, really hard, to hear what the universe is trying to tell me, what direction I should go, how hard I should strive to do one thing over the other. And after spending some time off the rails, I’m beginning to realize that the emptiness, the lack of an answer, is probably the answer. That’s some zen buddhist type shit, but it’s truer for me every passing day. When you simply stop trying to force your path into some preconceived notion of what it has to be, it becomes what it should be through inertia. And if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll love where it ends up. 

I still have no idea where I’ll end up, and if this whole thing will succeed. But I’ll tell you one thing. I bet you dollars to donuts that I will remember where I was on my birthday this time, next year. And THAT has to be the hallmark of a pretty good year ahead of you, doesn’t it? I hope so.