from a cold beach

It’s been a calm day on the beach. When we got here, we drove over a hill and I saw the ocean, once again, for the first time. We parked the car and I climbed over a sand dune to take it all in. I walked in the cold surf with Lauren and even took a nap for a little while on the sand. Lauren says happy birthday and throws her arms around me. Everything is pleasant, but I am having a really hard time ignoring how sad I feel. I’m feeling the time. My birthday depresses me. I do not want to admit that time is a limited thing and that I am using mine up fast. Youth is the source of all inspiration. The supposed wisdom of age is worthless. Old people are dead people. Everything right and profound is to be found in youth. Age is just the means of actualizing that innate wisdom. Or at least that's what Hitler said.
Considering the twenty-seventh year of my life, the year I am now burying, I try to interpret the events to find some sort of meaning as to what the hell I've been going through and what I ought to do next. History is simple, but interpreting the chain of events requires the originality of an artist and the understanding of a psychologist. This also applies one who tries to penetrate the meaning of one's own personal history.
Coming of age is a matter of disappointment. When you are young you have faith in yourself and believe anything can be done. You’re sure you’ll be important, talented, youthful genius incarnate. You know everything will conclude magnificently. By the time you turn twenty-eight it has become clear that it's not going to turn out that way.
Real life has emerged as a stalemate of sorts, a halfway meeting of ideals ands reality. But let's not kid ourselves: reality holds all the aces. Hopes, dreams, and convictions are still holding out in a few key strategic positions, but they are locked into and endgame and there's no way out of it.
Yeah, youth is over. You are finally who you're going to be. All the possibilities have been eliminated in a game of existential solitaire leaving just one card: the person you have become. This is it. There you are. The end.

September 1, 2008
Cannon Beach, Oregon