The Future Freaks Me Out.

Today marks three months before my 26th birthday.

Tomorrow is my last day in the Alliance Beverage warehouse, my transfer to becoming a merchandiser will finally begin on Monday.  A brand new career after three years of ups and downs in the warehouse.  I'm terrified yet excited to begin this new adventure.  I think my experience in the warehouse will help me out since I know the product and I know how to stock beer and wine.  My anxiety (my crutch) is the only thing holding me back from being absolutely confident in myself.

Now the job requires a lot of driving and I am not the most gifted navigator but I think I'm a moderate driver.  I'm not a pro but I'm not a bumbling mess.  Thank God for GPS is all I can say.  I'd get lost without it.  So back to the topic at hand, I'm almost 26 and I feel like 30 looms even closer as the years get shorter and my options get smaller.  Now sure 26 is not 30 and gives me a 4 year cushion but why am I so focused on 30?  Well, I feel like by the time you're 30, you should have a solid grasp of your career and life but now at 25, I still feel lost and well, the future freaks me out.

I wish I could live in the NOW but I live in the WHEN.  When will I move out?  When will I find a loving and lasting relationship?  When will I be happy with my career?  When is it going to be too late? When am I going to stop making the same stupid damn mistakes?

It's always when and not now.

I need to live in the now and forget the future but the future is just another example of my anxiety driving me insane (mentally).  I compare my anxiety to two brothers, one who lives upstate and one who lives downtown.  Sometimes they get together to have a beer and watch a game and that's when my mind kicks into anxiety overdrive.

If I could put my mind at ease, things would be better but until I overcome my anxiety, the future will continue to freak me out.

Groundhog's Day.

Groundhog's Day is one of Bill Murray's more well known movies where he played Phil Connors, a TV weatherman sent to Punxsutawney, PA to report on the annual Groundhog's Day festival.  The twist was he kept repeating the same day, encountering the same people over and over and over.

I guess you could say I'm currently in Groundhog's Day mode at my job.  I've been trying to move to my new position as a merchandiser but each week...I continue to loop back to the warehouse (aka my Groundhog's Day).  I guess they haven't found anyone qualified to replace me which I take as a compliment but at the same time, I really want to move on...it's been three years in the warehouse. My longest running tenured job and I've learned a lot and I have a lot of skills but the freedom of the merchandising position and the new experience is too enticing to pass up.

So where am I going with this?  Basically I'm stuck in the warehouse doing a job I'm good at and consistent at while I wait for my new job experience to begin.  It's not horrible but it's not wonderful. It's trudging along.

I thank Alliance Beverage and all my coworkers for teaching me the basics and becoming a better worker in the warehouse but I am so ready to move on.  So there is some anticipation along with some nerves to move on to this new position.  I hope the new employee is coming in the near future but right now as Ryan Key once sang  "It's a waiting game".

And I'm gonna keep waiting.

The Scarecrow & The Tin Man.

The Scarecrow wished he had a brain.
The Tin Man wished he had a heart.

Sometimes I feel like the Scarecrow, like I don't have a brain.  Like only someone brainless would do some of the things I've done.  A costly lesson happened this weekend, I won't go into details but I am fine but it made me see the bigger picture when it comes to drinking.  Excess is overabundance, Regress is progress.  I think I'm done with downtown GR for quite awhile.  I seem to just have bad times and then make bad decisions from there.  The thing with downtown is you just keep going and going if you can't stop yourself, and that in itself is a problem.  Now I love beer and I love a nice mixed drink or a shot but I just think maybe I'm overdoing it.  I try to believe in moderation but something about downtown just turns me into this moron who thinks he's God or something.  I feel like my overconfidence may have become one of my worst traits.  I mean yeah, I'm amazed how much I can stomach and not puke but damn do hangovers suck.  The older you get, the worst they are.  Drinking is a great social tool but when you lose control over yourself, that's when you might want to put the bottle down.

So I'm cutting back.  Part of me wants to try sobriety but I just like beer too much (and all the craft options) to go cold turkey.  So I guess I'm gonna try the 1,2,3 option.  1-3 beers tops.  Shots are devil btw.  But who can turn down a free shot?  I don't know how many lessons I need to give myself before I learn to cool it but this might be the one.  It's time to cut back.

The Tin Man wished he had a heart.  Sometimes I wish I didn't have a heart like the Tin Man.  There's a great song by the band Say Anything called "I Used To Have A Heart".  It's a great song.  When the heart hurts, it's a deep hurt.  My heart hurts more often than usual.  Regret is my least favorite feeling in the world.  And all I have recently is regret.  Regret for my actions and the way I lost control of myself.  I hate feeling regret.  And I hate how much I care about people I barely know.  Online dating is so weird because you open yourself up to this person you barely know, like all this emotional baggage and we barely know each other?  Why?  Why are we doing this to each other.  I almost want to take a break from finding a significant other.  Focus on other thing.  This summer, it's a sludge.  My hours are cut back at work,  I'm probably not moving out anytime soon and I probably hate my job deep down inside.  All I know is the first step is cutting back.  No more drunk Walsh, no more hangovers, no more idiotic thinking.

I'm done with all this nonsense.

Coasting.

• Stuck in neutral
• Going nowhere fast
• Quicksand

Coasting.  That's what I can say about my life right now.  I'm coasting through it all.  All the checks are straight down the middle, they're not to the left but they're not to the right.  I'm right in the middle. I don't have it figured out but I'm not a chicken with its head cut off.  But am I happy with coasting?  Do I know I'm coasting?  Absolutely and I hate it.

Trust me, I'd love to assert myself, make a name for myself but it's like an invisible force is holding me back.  The force known as self doubt.  Self doubt is the worst.  I've learned to accept my job, I don't love it but I don't hate it.  The good news is the frustrations are behind me and every day gets better, no longer do I feel upset or depressed at work,  I'm just like "eh it's better than what I used to do".

Having your work life solidified is one step in the right direction to getting your shit together but at the same time there is the reeling feeling that you know deep in your heart...You don't want to do this forever.  This job is here to pay rent, for my car, for my frivolous spending habits (at times).  I don't see myself making a career here.  It's a safety net while I figure out my true calling.  Just wish I knew what I was doing...

We're into the 2nd month of 2016.  January was alright, I turned 25, didn't seem to care (you can only have so many hangovers before you avoid them)  but overall outside of some upsetting celebrity deaths, January wasn't bad.  It's now February, I didn't really have a resolution for 2016.  I'm just used to more of the same.  I guess the only major change I made is listening to B93 and Country music lol.  Country music has good lyrics that come from the heart and it took me too long to realize that I really relate and feel things from this music.

And here I go going on another tangent when the topic at hand is coasting.  I am coasting through life and I hate it and I need to use these next few months to get those checks to the right side of the page but this time on the page of life.  Coasting gets you nowhere in life, the doers of this world are people with the checks to the right.  People like me have the checks in the middle.  I'm sick of being the guy with the checks in the middle.  And yet...I don't try.

Something's gotta give.