the burdensome reenactment of my life

It has been quite some time since I wrote here, not that anybody is listening anyhow, but the year thus far has been less than stellar, but i will save that for another day. The past few weeks have been incredibly rough for a number of reasons, but mainly because of this overwhelming feeling of having wasted my time and my life thus far. I know that many people have not done the things that I have. There are tons of kids who wish that they could have been in a band that put out records and toured, let alone making a nice little name for itself in its community. But maybe I'm wondering if it was all just a mistake. I have never felt normal, hell I have never been normal. I have spent the greater half of my life playing in punk and metal bands, reading punk and metal zines, being part of a scene that was my community. For all its faults it was mine.

And now I find myself isolated from the very place I grew up, and frankly I feel a little lost without the comfort of a scene to fall back on. Out here in this helliest of hellish places (Boston, MA) I am largely without friends and community. Living outside of the current of life is okay by me, I don't mind living on the fringes of society. But, I must admit that this city is pretty devoid of any subversive scene worth being a part of. I left Portland, OR with the idea that the east coast was something I needed to experience. I have not necessarily given up on that notion, but here in Boston is definitely not the place to live out a fulfilling life of meaningful activity.

The years leading up to living here were fairly uneventful, and were more an attempt at reconciling what had happened to me and who I had become. Now I look back and feel a whole lot of regret for what i view as having lived a bucket of mistakes, making a trail littered with all the people I hurt or abandoned along the way. It's just that I no longer feel a part of anything, and that's hard feeling alone. I find myself looking back and staring at all the idleness just to wonder what the fuck was I waiting for, this? this life? I feel empty in spit of all the accomplishments, in spite of the love I receive and I am a selfish prick for it.

My past isn't this horrible spectre even, it is just what it is. I was manipulated by my friends, I let myself be manipulated, that is what makes me so angry. That I felt so shitty about my life that I let fuck-ups fuck up my life. And now after damn near 15 years of hesitation and the punk rock runaround, here I am, working towards something, an education I guess, to what? I don't know, I'm still figuring that out and working towards being okay not being anything. It is awfully hard when you spend so much time in scenes where everything is compartmentalized, to not compartmentalize yourself.

Trying to move away from identifying myself by the bands I listen to and just identify me. Nope, no longer a punk, a crust punk, a trash punk, a pop punk, a metal head, a black metal kid, a trasher, a doomhead or for that matter an indiepop kid. just a kid who isn't a kid anymore. I'm almost 30 and I still feel 20, man, where did the time go? I wish I could count the cigarettes I smoked and the gin and tonics I drank maybe that would tell me something useful.