Tag Archives: life lessons

Regression

A particularly unfortunate event occurred in the wee hours this past Sunday. Before you wrestle with all the “most likely to occur in the late night hours” scenarios, let me simply cut to the chase. I, Tristen, engaged in absurd drunk dialing this past weekend; a total regression from where I currently am in my life’s journey.

I woke up completely embarrassed, slightly ashamed, and still drunk. My relationship with my cell phone has been particularly uneasy over the years and drunk dialing is something I threw out the window a few years ago, so to be revisiting it in my post-graduate life is a little unsettling personally.

The little tequila induced episode brought about somewhat of an epiphany for me as the day (read: hangover) progressed. The shame disappeared and the embarrassment continued to lurk around as I found myself incapable of contacting my victim to explain – “it was the tequila!” – or any other laundry list of excuses that my colorful mind could conjure up. Even as I write this now, I can’t help but cringe at the thought of my actions.

While I’m not the only person in the world who thinks receiving late night phone calls from your friends are hilarious, there are, in case you were unaware, an assembly of people whose opinions tend to lean far into the opposite direction.

While floating in all too familiar post-drunk dialing self-repudiation I willingly obliged when my girlfriend requested a companion for a brief shopping excursion to New Haven – partly because I was still a little tipsy when she asked, partly because I owed her big time, but mostly because she’s my bud.

My pal packed me a goody bag for the car ride that consisted of water, a nondescript ibuprofen, the latest edition of Glamour, and a pair of extra-large, extra-dark sunglasses – the perfect remedies for the state that I was in.

I read through the issue while fighting against the treacherous warriors who were seemingly engaged in a full-fledged battle royale in my stomach. I spent that car ride playing my best defense against the stomach creatures and luckily there were no issues in my friend’s new BMW.

There was a particular article that took my attention away from the war in my tummy – that of lessons which the author wished she had known about dating when she was 21. The advice was certainly pertinent given my current circumstances – single, 22, and fresh off harassing the object of my affection. I always tend to take counsel with a grain of salt, especially when it’s coming from a complete stranger who is getting paid-per-word but the author offered some sound advice given my situation – I have since misplaced that particular article so I’ll just continue on with the story.

My cousin had an ingenious idea that we should all go see, “Eat, Pray, Love” that night. Again, I submitted to another plan as I needn’t argue with the Missa.

Liz Gilbert’s life was all too familiar to my experiences. I took a similar journey not too long ago, albeit a shorter one and one which skipped over the “P” in the essential EPL acronym. Needless to say I felt a connection to her even though our stories are not complete replicas – a kindred spirit with an asterisk attached.

The movie left me with this unsettling emotion of complete and utter despondence given the state of my career and romantic life. I asked myself a number of questions about what I want out of my life, especially right now. This led to the epiphany I spoke about earlier which came to full bloom after my brief self-doubt.

What the movie eventually made me re-realize (if that even counts as a legitimate word) is that life is about taking chances – not sitting around waiting for change or accepting the status quo. Liz made a ballsy choice, a risk even, by picking up and leaving for a year to rediscover herself – personifying the question”Why take a leap when you can jump?”

In the greater scheme of things, my tequila fueled phone escapade will only go down as a blip on my life’s radar. I’m 22 years old and my training wheels on the bicycle that is life are only starting to loosen (read: I’m young and make silly mistakes). So I guess the overall message that I want to convey is that no, I don’t feel entirely remorseful for my actions, embarrassed? – totally. While I definitely said unintelligible, ridiculous things, at least I made the jump.

Life Lessons From an Unsuspecting Fellow

That fellow happens to be John Mayer.

People who don’t read his blog should re-evaluate their lives and try and catch a glimpse of his writing every now and then. I lost touch a few months ago with John Mayer the writer and became too involved with John Mayer the lyricist (his jams help me calm down). And other than dishing out sweet beats he also happens to be a pretty funny guy (look his videos up on FunnyOrDie.com).

The John Mayer who I like is the one who wrote this blog entry, of which I add an excerpt:

I wish that when I was younger I could have met my current self. We would have sat down at a coffee shop so that I could explain life to young me in terms that only we would understand. It would have saved me a lot of hardship.

…

I used to think that life was an intricate series of levers and pulleys, buttons and switches, Mexican standoffs and hostage negotiations. As I get older I realize that life is more Netherlands minimalist than Jackson Pollock. The problems don’t get fewer, and in fact they grow in number, but the way I index them in the database is different. More problems get filed under fewer category headers.

He was able to put 22 years of thoughts going on in my head into 3 simple paragraphs. The guy is about 30 though so he’s had enough time and experience to figure out that the levers and pulleys don’t really exist.

My favorite part of the entire excerpt lay in the last two sentences. That particular section was most poignant to me after experiencing a weekend filled with young dramatic 20 somethings. I think this more or less categorizes under “Pick Your Battles,” something which we should all learn to do as we get older. I don’t believe that means to bite your tongue and not speak up or stand for yourself, but to know how to properly communicate your feelings without creating more chaos for someone whose problem database is far more complex than any sane, mature human could imagine. They’re the kind of people who simply just don’t get it.

If you could have dinner with your 7 year old self, would you? I probably would like to just for the overall experience but I wouldn’t “Mommy” myself so to speak and attempt to instill life lessons in the young freckle faced tom-boy. The point of having life lessons is that they are earned (and learned for that matter) which is exactly what I think Mayer is talking about here. There’s a reason we aren’t born with so much knowledge and wisdom – it’s so that we realize things like how putting your hand on a hot oven SUCKS and the scars you get from it will teach you to ask for an elder before attempting to fuck around with that thing again (rough memories!)

As we go through life, yes, things get more difficult, but what’s the use in complaining? Life’s a beautiful thing. If you read that excerpt I added and didn’t really understand it, then I recommend you take another look, and then another and maybe one last look and attempt to realize how it may or may not correlate with things you’re currently experiencing. Looking at this from a post-graduate perspective really made the message seem more clear to me. Now’s the time to grow up and for people to put their petty shit aside. Now’s the time to attain lay-enlightenment. Put all of your experiences into a bubble and to figure out what that means to you.

Other than hobbies, what kind of changes are you making/trying to make since graduating?