...I only wanted to begin

I've started doing crunches. Fifty in the morning and fifty before bed. It's a new step for me, as the only other exercise regimen I've maintained was PE warm-ups from grade school. Then it was merely overstated stretching and wiggling. Arm circles, toe touches, a sit-up or a push-up thrown in for good measure. After that, the extent of my physical exertion could be chalked up to short bike rides here and there, or the day-to-day running around I did as a not-so-valued member of the IGA grocery staff. The result? Lean legs, sticks for arms, and what can only be described as baby fat that never received the memo from my pituitary gland. To be fair, it wasn't the only one to miss the message (I was entirely incapable of growing a decent amount of facial hair until shortly after high school).

But now things will be different. Now I'm stepping up my game. And it's only been (hmm...one, two...), well how long it's taken to reach this point is not important. I'd be the first to admit that I have a problem with motivation (I graduated from high school in 2007, despite the fact that my senior year proper took place the three years prior). What's important is that I'm here now. I know what must be done if I'm to salvage my existence.

Which conveniently brings me to the crux of the matter, i.e. my existence. Everyone, at some point in their life, questions their existence. Such questions as, "where did I come from?", "what is my purpose in life?", and "what happens after it's all said and done?". Well, I've proposed to myself a different query: Who are you and what difference does it make whether or not anyone else knows the answer? It's a question that's far more specific to my case, but it requires a reply that is no less complex than typical existential wonder. I'll start slowly.

I was born May 22nd, 1986. That puts my age at twenty-two years. But for a few unrecognizable years spent in Florida, I've lived in Ohio my entire life. More specifically, the south side of Columbus. I attended the same middle and high school as my mother and her family. My two older siblings also attended said high school. I got my first, and so far only job right out of high school (the first "right out of high school"), at the aforementioned IGA. I was an employee for roughly one year and seven months. At the end of this period, I happily quit my part-time position in search of brighter things. I have yet to find those things. My brother followed, somewhat forcibly, in my father's footsteps. My sister became a mother, not unlike her mother before her. And I...well, I'm writing this now. If you see some discrepancies there, believe me when I tell you that they do not go unnoticed (not by myself, my mother, my father, my sister...et al).

If there is one accomplishment that I can hold on to, it's the fact of my graduation and the subsequent diploma. I'm the fabled "first in the family". This feat might be enough to sustain me at this relatively young age, had it not been for the fact that I waited until three years after my senior year to finally achieve this goal. However, a gold stamp and embossed lettering are not enough to carry me aloft. Not in my family's eyes, any way. As for myself, I could care less about the piece of paper. For me, there are much greater things at stake than simple academia. Not the least of which is my sanity.

I'm in between jobs, which is to say I receive no income for having done no work and I'm living at home with my parents. I'm also currently single. This, of course, is a misleading statement, as I have never not been single. That's even including an odd little event in my early teens when the little neighbor girl, about three years my junior and of whom I wasn't particularly fond, asked by note if I would be her boyfriend. I begrudgingly accepted for fear that I would be forever alone if I didn't act quickly. I never was her boyfriend, however, as you can't be the boyfriend of a person when you're neither emotionally involved with them, nor know their name (it might have started with an L, but don't hold me to this). It might also help the relationship if you ever speak to each other, or occupy the same room as one another.


Social interaction with my few remaining friends is scarce at best. At worst, we become unaware of whether or not we are still alive. But then it's hard to maintain active friendships when you're literally too anxious to pick up the phone and call them, lest someone unfamiliar answers on the other end and drives you into a panic attack. Also there's the problem of being a modern day hermit in your own home (honestly, it's a wonder people keep any friends at all).

To all of this I have remained generally indifferent. I've always felt relatively content doing little and having done nothing. I've empathized with the main character in the film Office Space. Sure, there have been times when I've been overcome with cabin fever. I've been sullen. But nothing a good episode of MST3K and a night's rest couldn't cure. In my life, I've experienced more severe melancholy over the simple issue of going to school that day. It was not entirely uncommon for me to become so depressed in the mornings that I would be reduced to tears. It started some time in middle school and lasted up until senior year (when my half-sized schedule permitted me to leave for home at noon). Even then it only ever lasted until class let out that afternoon. Now, though, I am unsure of my contentedness. As the song that inspired the title of this writing states, "I'm thinking about bliss, and bliss is all dressed up and there's no one to dance with". I'm not satisfied with myself anymore. Complacency is no longer enough to please me. It's as if one day I woke up and it was different.


On Saturday it was different. On Saturday I was depressed by a dream from which I had awoken. In this dream I had something, and then when I woke up it was gone. I've had such dreams before. I would arise to find that the fun I was having was cut short by reality. In this dream, however, I lost something far greater. In this dream I had more than ever, and then when I woke up I had lost it all.

In this dream, I had love. Then as quickly as it was in my hands, the sun's rays had taken it away. The girl's face, among other details, is a blur at this point, though I'm fairly sure of who it was. In this dream, at some gathering or another, we had found each other. We had held each other and we had kissed. Something the waking me had never experienced before. In the dream, we were there, and in the dream I went to attend to some other matter. Before we could find each other again, I was up. It had indeed been a dream, and I was sad. It has been four days now, and the feeling hasn't left me.

It was on that day that I found a photo of that girl and I haven't stopped looking at it. It was on that day that she inspired me. However I could bring myself to do it, little by little, I would do things differently. As it says later in the song, "it's OK for you to care, cause I can taste you everywhere, and while its true all straight things must bend, I only wanted to begin".

So I've started doing crunches. Fifty in the morning and fifty before bed. It's a new step for me.