Reflecting on a year

Yesterday I turned 32, my first birthday in my new life in Oakland. I spent the day working on This Just In From Gen Con (which I’ll be launching today or tomorrow), IPR work, and playing games at the first Go Play SF Bay pick-up game night. We had 18 people show up! It was pretty awesome.

I know that to a lot of my friends, I’m still pretty fucking young. “30 is the new 25” and all that bullshit. (I don’t know if it’s *correct* bullshit, but it is nonetheless dismissive, so I loathe it as I loathe all sayings that dismiss without listening.) When I was younger, I hated being treating as such, but I find now there’s strength in saying “meh, I’m only 32.” I have time to, quite frankly, unfuck my life, to recover from the bad choices I made and bad situations I allowed myself to remain in years ago.

(Random: I just overhead someone just walked by in the coffee shop I’m at say “…I’m a teenager…” This strikes me as amusing for no easily-explainable reason.)

Of course, it’s hard to really feel young when you live in a continual cycle of fearing debilitating pain and being in said pain. I’ve physically recovered for the most part (aside from weight gain, but working on that) from using a cane for five years. Mentally, well, that’s a long fucking road, but I’m on it.

Anyway, this past year’s been pretty good to me. I finally pulled the trigger on a major life decision I’ve been working toward for a long time. I’ve extracted myself from most of the bad situations that I’ve wanted out of. I have found myself in a really awesome family — the Evil Hat crew — and I’m proud of the work we’ve done. I’ve found some great new friends and an awesome community down here in Oakland.

It took a bit for it all to click. When I first moved down, I had people ask me often to hang out or whatnot, and I spent many evenings chilling with friends. I suddenly had a very active social life in person, whereas in Sacramento I had less of one (since many of my friends were down here). But I didn’t initially feel connected to living down here, thanks to my constant commuting and con trips. That took a few months, and it took some special people to make me feel really welcome here.

Now, I feel like I’m home. Even though I have an intense wanderlust, and constantly think “man, I should just go up to Seattle/Chicago/New York/Austin/Portland/Denver/wherever for a week and couchsurf & work,” I don’t feel like saying “man, I should *move* to…” I haven’t been happy with where I’ve lived in years.

I’m home. That’s what I got myself for my 32nd birthday[1]. Being home[2].

I hope to fuck this feeling lasts. Uprooting a life is exhausting, and I’m no longer a person who will remain in a situation he’s tired of.

- Ryan

[1] To be fair, that’s what a few special individuals have given me for my 32nd birthday.

[2] Though I’ll probably feel that even more when I finally unpack my stuff.

  1. lifeofmack posted this