I first met James Generic on the Internet. I was setting up a book tour for an author that wanted to speak at the Wooden Shoe, Philadelphia venerable anarchist bookstore, and James had recently become an events-committee-of-one. We corresponded about the logistics of the event for a couple weeks and everything ended up going smoothly. Less than a year later, I moved to Philly from Northampton, MA and found myself being trained by James one Saturday night at the Shoe. Eventually I joined the events committee and have continued to enjoy working with him to bring great radical speakers to the South Street infoshop.
James is currently writing a book about the Wooden Shoe and blogs about Philly sports at Stadium Vagabonds. Without further adieu, here is the first submission to 360 Months...
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I feel kinda funny writing this, because it feels somewhat like writing an obituary. 30 is not old, just a milestone. You don't really have any more excuses. You're supposed to have your shit together at this point, be ready to move forward. I still have a year and a half before I turn 30, and it doesn't really concern me... Okay, maybe it does. Just a bit. I used to have my shit together. I certainly did. But the last year was a tough year. I thought that I had it together. A long term, decent paying job. I was married to the love of my life. I owned my rowhome. I had it made by most standards. I am well-known and generally well-liked, with just a few enemies made over the years (fuck 'em, anyway).
But things started to tumble, as I put more and more of my energy into organizing and volunteering. As the pressure constantly mounted, my marriage was the first to crack--to the tune of many tears and wrenching of the heart. They say that losing the love of your life to a breakup is almost worse than losing someone to death. I was a damn wreck for a long time, drowning in a great downward spiral like toilet water sucking down the hole of death. Then, in July, my boss hit me across the face, and I quit my job, walking away with unemployment benefits assured (since I quit with good cause). Those two combined to make my continued home ownership impossible, so my home is up for sale. I know, I know, boohoo. A lot of people my age never ever had those things in the first place. Like I said, the last year was my fall from grace. I had a nice writing project to do, but damn, writing has a lot more highs and lows than a 9-5er. It was a whole lot of adjustments.
So here I stand, at the crossroads. My 20's are nearly done. Somedays I hit the bottle to stay sane, trying to figure out how to get my shit together. One of my core values is that I am pretty reliable and dependable. I think I have maintained that basic core. That's really the last thing I have left. I have never given that up, even if I am notoriously flakey when showing to parties or big social events. I'll never leave you hanging if we have 1 on 1 hangouts planned, and I have very rarely failed in my political work with the Wooden Shoe collective or Solidarity.
A lot of people just get their start at 30. Like a lot of coaches or actors or writers or whatever. Then again, life is almost done at 30 if you're a football player, as a career. Its all perspective. My parents had me when they were in the early 30's. Oh shit... that's coming up, if I wanna reproduce. Something that my 20's taught me very well is that as much as you want to plan out your life, it doesn't quite work like that. You can't plan shit. Everything falls apart eventually. Flesh rots, as do everything that humans build, eventually. You can keep it going, but its a race against time. Eventually it fails. Eventually we die. This isn't a surrender, but just a recognition. You have to keep trying to swim upstream, because otherwise you'll drown, and just become another floater.
But you know what? What about 40? I kind of look forward to being the dirty old man at the bar who makes terrible jokes. Maybe to some of my friends in their early 20's or late teens, I already am that guy. Who knows though? As long as I can keep drinking beer, watching baseball, and staying involved in social movements for a better world, I think I'll generally be happy and content. Contentish, anyway. So I don't have a career right now. I was getting bored with libraries anyway. So I don't have marriage anymore, and god I miss her somedays, but maybe I'm better as a single guy. So I don't have a house anymore. Maybe it's better not to be tied down like that (says the guy who hates leaving Philadelphia.) Sure, I feel lost a lot, feeling out the days, but you gotta wander the desert before finding the land of milk and honey, donchya? Or drown in the Red Sea.
I can grow a full beard now. That's different than when I turned 20.
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