I began 2018 with so many questions and while I've shared the travel experiences I enjoyed in Mexico and Japan, I haven't written on my year quite yet.
So where am I?
Answers...
Good news to the January 2018 Martin: your hairline remains!
Bad news: you don't own a house. And that's fine!
Announcing an interest in buying a house feels being a way too hot person whose Facebook status went from "In a Relationship" to "Single."Your friend who's in real estate private messages you more than before and random emails and letters don't stop from mortgage lenders. My status is now "Looking to Buy" so now I receive messages like "How u doing?" or "DTB?" (down to buy).
Granted, these folks make their money with marketing such as these emails and letters. I have no qualms with them.
It's a privileged place, to a degree. I'm at a point I hoped for, dreamed for, and worked for: the point where I can make investments for my future. I can start a Roth IRA. I can have a high yield savings account to save up for a down payment on a house.
I'm glad to be here and I know this status won't last. Somewhere in the future a hiccup will occur: furloughs, tax raises, and other hijinks that my occupation as public librarian may bring forth. This knowledge motivates me to invest now while I can because who knows what will happen.
So I started a Roth IRA. I do have a high yield savings. But I'm waiting until after the new year in 2019 to grind down on home-buying. Why? So I can put down enough to avoid paying heavily on my credit line and so I can purchase a detached house. Initially I thought of buying a condo or townhome but I decided that's not me. If I have to take part in this proverbial debutante ball, I want a house I can live in long enough to not deal with it again for a xwhile. That means a not-quite but close dream house with land acreage and rooms I can fill with books!
That means a larger down payment. By December I should have enough for the down payment.
On non-home matters this year, I have found more answers or solutions to my long term questions. But much of what I conceived involves financial concerns, travel concerns, film concerns - quantifiable questions. These concerns have resolutions or answers.
But what about the qualitative questions, or the questions that can't be defined in a set end-goal. What are the questions I didn't ask? How will it feel to be Martin?
I didn't begin this year asking questions for feelings or emotions. I didn't ask "how would I feel when my friends turned 30 or when my mom turned 60?"
"Why am I scared of death?"
Wait what?
Questions
When you read that segue you may think how do I go from "down payment almost ready" to "I'm terrified of dying."
Well, that's my brain right now. I require action and I need to accomplish goals. I also have to read a book or watch The Clone Wars if I wake up too early and can't sleep because if I remain still my anxiety walls fall and all the anxiety armies standing at gates flood in.
I think many of our brains work like this. But I never ask these questions. I start years working towards answers for quantifiable questions or tactics for accomplishing goals and I never consider the tactics for reckoning with my humanity. I remove myself from that because I think I'm a robot.
But despite my inability to articulate my emotions and to reveal inner truths the way others find easily, I am human. Or at least I have human emotions programmed in me.
I ask "why am I afraid of death" because I worry about death. A lot. I wrote about it in my Japan trip post. As I plan for the long term, a very necessary task, it sets forth actual reckoning with the idea that I may die or people I love will die. When I discussed my plans for a Roth IRA, my Mom stopped me. "I don't want to think about you when you're 60, because I'll be 91 if I'm still here."
I have no way to conceive of death in a way that satisfies me even a little bit. I hope the cure for mortality is found. I also wouldn't mind becoming a cyborg. But I don't want to think of just sleeping. I want to have the forest I can wander in with Angie, with my friends, with my family, and with my dog.
So that's an eternal question I never ask that I need to ask: how do I make peace with endings?
I've spent my whole life working towards becoming or seeming more human. I've tried for more open expressions when it's not natural to me. I try to smile more even though I'm not naturally inclined. I try to share glee like when my friends celebrate - a sincere glee. But it's not a dial for me - I'm off or really on. Like intense weird on. I'm either meh or "YAY!!!" It's not bipolar. It's intensity.
I've tried to act more human and measure my intensity and outward humanity. But I haven't given much consideration for the humanity - the fears, hopes - that still live in me. I haven't really made peace with how I view "loneliness as a war." Despite my aversion to humanity, I still want to share pieces of me. But what pieces do I share? I share my intense love of World War 1 and movies, but I feel I underwhelm my loved ones with very little sharing of my humanity and struggles.
I've spent my whole life oversharing the wrong pieces. So what are the pieces people really want? And how do I share them?
I struggle asking these questions because there are not hard set answers or resolutions. I cannot find answers for these questions over a year. I can't write a to-do list and underneath "finish the second draft of Hunters" write "figure out your fear of death by September." These remain eternal questions that I will spend my whole life pursuing answers for.
Maybe that's the piece I need to share: the pursuit, the struggle that I have with how my humanity evolves and how my answers to these questions change.
But I need to remain forward. I can work on these questions and still move forward with the life I want.
Forward
Despite my anxieties, I remain hopeful at what my life may become and where I stand now. I write this post with less than 6 months away from 30. I write this post grateful that I have reaped the rewards of work, of my loved ones' support, and I remain vigilant.
I can plan for my financial future. I have more scripts to write (two have production potential). I finished my short film Will this summer. I accepted a promotion at another library branch.
There remains work ahead. There remains struggle ahead. Anxieties never go away, but I can only give so much time to anxiety. I will push through this year with ample savings, ample screenwriting, trips to Asheville and St. Augustine, and embrace the 50 List.
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