So What Now?

What now? Whattya do next? Once the carrot's been got? Once the goal's been a'-goaled?

Well I'll tell ya one thing. You stop putting forth any and all affectations. You stop trying to be something you're probably not. Much as you'd like to see yourself as it, if you're to be truly honest with yourself, you have to admit -- it's not you. Oh, sure, it's cute and it's clever. Perhaps it's rhythmic and a little bit lyric. Maybe you thought it was something that was worth somebody's time -- indeed, at one time it was worth your time. But if you're to be truly honest with yourself... In the way you set forth to be when you set forth to pursue it... Then you have to admit, it's a sham. It's veneer. It's surface, through and through, and beneath it lies a more genuine you.

That wasn't supposed to sound clever. That wasn't meant to rhyme. But I had to do it. So there. I did it. I did it again. I did something trite, so we could get it out of the way. Masks take on so many layers. So many forms. I want to transcend triviality. I want to connect.

I don't want to hide behind format, behind tense, style, or meter, or anything that comes across as brogue. I just wanna tell you what I'm feeling. I just wanna show you I'm real. Really here, really feeling, really wanting to reach out -- really wondering if my language is capable of doing anything more than tying itself up in knots. Verbal knots. Linguistic knots. Worded, spoken, come-across-as-text-ed knots. Text so textual it's self conscious beyond belief. Self conscious like a college student's musings. Self-absorbed like the prosaic prose of a deadbeat.

It would be easy to be a deadbeat. I should know. I've been one before. In many ways, I still am one, and my sleeve still flutters from the tugs I still tug on it, begging for attention. The attention of a life with no intention, save recklessness. Save escape.

But I think I'm growing up.

There. I said it. I'm growing up. I'm growing up, and I'm growing out of the phase where I've stuck myself. I've stuck myself in one phase far too long. And I'm glad to have been there but I'm wondering what lies next and I'm still enjoying but I'm wishing it away. I'm wishing it away but I'm wishing it could stay. I'm wishing it could stay in the way that a kid wishes he doesn't have to start using deodorant. His mother is telling him he needs to start using deodorant and he screams, "Nooo!!!" It's a boyish response. It's perhaps one of the last boyish responses he'll be allowed to legitimately have. Sure, he can have more, more boyish responses, but from that point on -- from the point where his mom tells him he needs to start using deodorant -- whatever boyish responses he has will be perceived as boyish in the eyes of the world. In the eyes of the world, he'll be a man. A man having boyish responses.

That's how I feel. I feel like that boy. That boy who's been told by his mom that he stinks, and that he now needs deodorant. Like that stinky boy, I now need something. I need something that shows me and the world that I've moved onto the next step. I need the equivalent to starting to use deodorant when you're pubescent, and your mom tells you you have to.

I stink. I stink and my approach to life stinks and it needs deodorant. I need deodorant and nobody's had the nerve to tell me. Nobody's told me because it's probably nobody's job, except maybe my mother's, and she already did it. She did it when I was 12. She did it, and I fought it. I fought it, I fought her, and I made a stink. I made a stink that stank more than I did to start with. And eventually I realized it. Eventually I realized I stank. Eventually the stink overcame me, and then suddenly I didn't need mom to tell me I stank. I just stank. I needed deodorant. I needed deodorant because I stank. So I picked up some deodorant. I picked up some deodorant, and I put it on.

I'd love to tell you I stank no more, but that would be fallacy. Indeed, I still stank. I still stink to this day. That's what I've been trying to tell you. I stank then, and I stink now, as does my approach to life.

I worry there's something stinky about my style. I worry I'm trapping myself in the very trap I began telling you I wanted to escape. But I also worry that, in not using my style, I might be forgoing myself. So the style emerges. It re-emerges. It emerges, and re-emerges, and surfaces to serve. Can I be honest with you and still use a style? Does my style stink? Should I abandon it forever and replace it with a sturdy stick of Old Spice?

Well, all fragrance aside, there's one thing I know: I've been fighting adulthood for a long time now. Let's face it. This whole blog has been about my contention with maturity. But I knew maturity had to set in, sooner or later. I knew, the second I proclaimed myself "an irresponsible homo hipster," that the journey depicted within these posts would be that of a young man -- an aging young man -- reveling in his resistance to grow up.

Eventually all resistance ends. All force, be it action or reaction, has to end. And so I'm here to tell you -- the resistance has ended. This resistance to the force that is aging has ended. I'm growing up. I'm getting old. Despite myself, I'm getting old. So I'm deciding now what matters. Should I keep on fighting? Resist as long as I can? Or should I just accept that I have the same needs as my cohorts? Should I accept that I'm just another guy who needs cash flow, health benefits, and a 5-year plan?

And is there, perhaps, room for everything? Is there room for a Bohemian's hope while he whittles away his hours in the work force? Is there still a remote chance? A remote chance he'll find time to scribble down a poem, and then read it at his local bookstore or cafe?

I suppose I'm still clinging to that hope. To the hope that I can somehow still do it all. Do all the bourgeois bullshit, and the bohemian bullshit, too. Christ knows I "have the time," relatively speaking. When speaking in relation to my cohorts with kids. My cohorts with kids, or with high-profile jobs, or with parents who've turned terminal (if they get along enough to justify the effort).

But I thought you should know. I thought you should know, I'll be irresponsible no more. No longer shall I play the insipid Peter Pan (with a gay twist). I won't play the part of the fool anymore. I need to grow up. I need to go gray. I need to experience love, responsibility and life's inescapable decay.

(And I need to do so with the occasional rhyme. That's just the way it is. Hey -- a brogue's a gift, plain and simple. Far be it for me to squelch it completely.)

Now that I'm here, where I've worked so hard to be, it's time to move on. I'm finally sick of irresponsible endeavors. I've grown tired of escape. Oh, sure, I'll still party for release -- but I won't continue to make partying a lifestyle. There has to be more to life, and it's my turn to find it.