Still Fighting It

I'm sitting in the basement of my parent's house. My stuff is in boxes, and it surprises me how little of it there is. I move out in two and a half weeks, and I've never been more relieved in my life. I'm not really horribly excited or happy; I'm simply relieved to grow up.

I am facing the realization that, if I want, I never have to come back to this place. I can live where I want, with who I want. And in that, I feel that I can be whoever I want, too.

When I think about what I want my life to look like, I think about playing paintball through high school. I remember what it feels like to crash at 3 AM to wake up at 6, drive for a couple hours in my pajamas and a hoodie, and show up to some backwater field and play my heart out. Its the same feeling I get when I wake up at 4 AM to catch a ride to the airport, going to some place in the middle of nowhere. Its a feeling in my chest and my head. It's a mix of exhaustion and excitement and realization of unpredictability. I want my life to be full of these moments, moments in which I don't know where I'm going to sleep that night, or what I'm going to have to do tomorrow.

I have a craving for the new, the unexpected. Leaving my parents basement is my first step toward the life I want to live. It's been 18 long years, and I feel prepared. I know what I want.

Goodbye, bedroom. Goodbye, Mom and Dad. I don't know where I am going, but I know that I want my life to be full of those moments of exhaustion, excitement and and realization of unpredictability. Sometimes, it sucks to grow up.

But today, it doesn't.

--Josh