Sometimes we stick around in the idea of what something once was....yeah stop that.
Stop feeling your feelings and start living your fucking life
I never fit in with anyone growing up, it was really weird. We moved a lot and I think that was a confusing experience, especially as a kid. It’s never easy leaving friends behind and having to meet new people. It was always so new. Money was no object because there wasn’t any of it. If it weren’t for having siblings, it would of been a ruthless journey for me. I always felt a lot of the world around me which was a painful part of growing up. I could just sense and feel everyones feelings, or lack of.
It wasn’t all painful. I remember weekends at the lake with my dad and siblings full of of laughs and family dinners, that you’d better be on time for. Til this day, I share laughs with family when we talk about memories that have since been decades when they took place. Sometimes we had money. Sometimes we went to the beach and could feel the sand between our toes.
Like this one time, I walked to the new Stop and Shop with my mom. I can’t tell you what was going on, but I could sense my mom was locked in and well, she wanted to just live for a second. And not worry about all the what if’s that plagued a poor family. For just a second, we could be ourselves. I jumped along the sidewalk where we walked up the hill probably a mile or two from our house. We talked, she taught me to look both ways always before crossing the street, and never run because if you fell, a car would drive over you.
I learned to take my time and look both ways, promise Ma.
After arriving to the Stop and Shop, we stood in front of the freezer section looking at ice cream. And I could feel the excitement my mom felt from seeing the Rocky Roadish Ben n Jerry’s peaking at us through the glass.
“Look! It’s marked down. Lets grab one.”
I never felt more alive as a kid. It felt like, man we really are defying the odds out here.
Middle finger’s in the air, we had our Ben N Jerry’s, and we were thrilled for the long walk home.
Mac Miller once said in an interview that “sometimes we stick around in these things.. for the idea..of what it once was.”
Woah.
Earth shattering? Not really.
Relevant? Absolutely.
Because we are the voiceless in 2025. We have lost our way. We resort to short term fixes to bandaid our deeper problems. The minute we come home, we neglect chores, disregard the world around us, and submerse ourselves into our tiny hand computers. Almost instantaneously, we are set into hours of doom scrolling and total avoidance. Only viewing the most provoking content, tailored just for us.. And depending on who you are, it could be the latest SNL sketches, sad montages with music from the past that reminds you of “that one time,” or motivational speeches that only keep you complacent.
Maybe you feel inspired, but only for a few moments until the next short comes across your screen.
The motivation is real, but motivation without discipline is just a car stuck in park.
We all have the means. Our potential is limitless. But we don’t feel we are capable.
We just don’t feel it.
The world around us has manufactured artificial experiences supported by more artificial experiences.
All I can think of recently has been my age. But not even that I’m getting older. But that times is going by and it’s going by so fast.
“Fuck, I’m gonna be 30 this year. Where’d all that time go?” I think to myself.
It’s been a bottomless pit of depression, anxiety, and overthinking. It’s driven me wild. I haven’t felt something this visceral in a long time. It’s been eye opening. I’ve turned to reading and learning as a means to seek understanding to really my biggest concern: What am I doing here?
It’s the first year in my entire life that I’ve succeeded at everything I’ve done. This includes all the learning lessons, because shit, theres been many. I think it’s because I’ve changed as a person. I’m not the kid that took a walk with my mom one day to get ice cream with probably the last five bucks we had. I’m not fighting with my siblings over the remote anymore. I haven’t begged for anyone to stay in my life in years. I haven’t cried over a loss in years. I learned to accept what it is and what it isn’t.
When grandma would drop me off at my moms, I would chase her car down the road begging to stay with her. When I would go to my grandmas for the night, I would beg to stay at my moms. I would pout, freak out, go crazy. I would cry waiting for my dad to pick my brother and I up on the weekends when he would never show. I told woman I loved deeply I would never hurt them, and then cheated them.
Thirty? I didn’t plan this far. I thought it was another world in another life and now it’s here. The existential questions, the inability to be around people, and all of the worry; it’s been enlightening and refreshing.
I feel like I could feel again.
Every week I have my chiropractor appointment. I think God started by creating these professionals because they have magic hands. When you get older, you start feeling all of those 18 year old choices. Specifically, in your knees and back. I’ve been skeptical of the profession for years and anyone you ask will likely tell you something different.
“Oh, don’t go to the chiro, there gonna fuck you up worse.”
“Oh my chiro saved my life. My back pain totally went away.”
..I agree with the second one.
Not just because my back pain went away. But because in a very small and relevant way, they have saved me. In an “aha” turn of events.
I never felt I fitted in. I was picked on, I was smelly, and I never had the coolest snacks at lunch time. I had everything I needed growing up, but never the extras that I saw everyone else had. All my clothes were hand me downs, baggy, and something I had to grow into. My shoes were always a size bigger than they needed to be. It made me want more growing up. I developed a moral superiority for doing the right thing, but really, what is the right thing? I sacrificed more and more as I got older until eventually weeding out all of the bad things in my life.
Like well, that none of the clothes, or snacks, really mattered.
Oh, and now that I’m almost 30, everyones smelly. Look at that, life coming full circle.
Unintentionally, I found hobbies like performing and writing that gave me a sense of purpose. These little things grounded me and always tugged at my heart to “try one more time no matter how uncomfortable the experience was,” because what I do today, isn’t natural to me. I built a career that I can be proud of and continue to gain momentum, without even trying. It’s almost pathetic how easy it comes to me and that’s not to gloat or puff my chest out in some pompous way. It’s that everything is so unbelievably aligned with me. My doggies, my pride and joy, are healthy and happy. We have many snuggles daily and see as many of their friends and family as much and as often as their dad can make time for.
Wow.
The fridge is stocked with groceries when I have the will to food shop, a daunting experience after working 15 hour days and constantly engaging with people. It really sucks the juice out of your tanks but we tell ourselves, it’s for the greater good. We tell ourselves, “one day will retire and have everything.” “It's a means to an end.”
There isn’t one thing I can’t do in my eyes, and I feel like I have it all. I feel empowered and on top of the world.
For me, it’s never been enough though. It never meant to have done and acquired so many things. Even to succeed professionally. Of course I love knowing all the things I love are healthy and happy and that’ll always be an important aspect of my life, probably the most important for so many of us. Those things have tremendous value.
But the most extraordinary part is that none of this is possible by being what we always were. It doesn’t happen without endless sacrifice. It’s not possible to see the glory of it all without losing sight of the purpose. I was a rotten kid, therefore people probably stayed away from me and didn’t trust me. I felt outcasted, I felt like a nomad, a lone wold, a nobody. But I did it to myself.
Those feelings are so heavy and almost impossible to shake. So we turn to drugs, we turn to self harm, we turn to deceit and manipulation to play the cards were dealt in our favor. But life has a way of correcting course, always. I developed a sense of “who really cares?” therefore I stopped caring. Mirroring the only thing I could see in my eyes.
A few weeks ago, I felt utterly displaced realizing all of my wrongs and faults. Not in a “omg, please help me, I’m crying for help.” But in a typical guy way, “fuck, I got some work to do.”
I wanted to feel joy again. I wanted to be involved and liked by people, so much that I realized none of this has anything to do with me. It’s not always about our feelings because that’s the thing with our feelings, their not always accurate. We revert back to what we know, it’s comfortable, it’s accessible. But it keeps us away from reaching our next level. It prevents us from seeing the opportunities that lie within us. It pulls us inward and away from expressing ourselves freely, and outwardly. The way I hope everyone learns to be one day.
And it wasn’t until I walked out of the chiropractor today that it hit me that sometimes we do stick around the idea of what it once was, not what it is anymore. Certainly not what it has to become.
I could feel it.
Everything you just read aside, I only ever wanted to be loved by people and accepted for the things I loved. I spent most of my life shape shifting for the situation and experiences that I lost my way and it had to happen. I waited for the right time, I thought long and hard about my choices until imminent paralysis by analysis. I mirrored other peoples emotions instead of setting the tone.
It wasn’t until I put all of my rough and vague emotions aside that I could really see it take place.
My chiropractor did save my life because I went every week. And every week, I could feel more community. I felt like part of a family. I could sense people actually looking forward to talking to me. It wasn’t about getting the adjustment. It was about sticking to that appointment, and showing up to see people outside of my usual routine, having banter with new faces.
Although I do have a bone to pick with my doctor after today.
“Anthony, you do stand up? Are you any good? he asked.
“Idk doc, I come here every week and make you laugh. You tell me.” I responded jokingly.
“Well I’m paid to laugh at everything you say.” he responded sharply.
I whisper with my face smashed into the chiropractor table “You SOB.”
Old, tired, miserable, full of excuses, and down right out of patience. No light at the end of the tunnel, no guide to guide you on your darkest day in your loneliest of hours.
It wasn’t until I could put aside the feelings I instinctively wanted to feel, that I felt again.
The banter between everyone these last few weeks, I could tell people were waiting for me to take the lead. People were waiting for me to make the reservation, make the call, create the community, crack the joke, set the speed of the conversation, show up. It’s about time to snap out of it, if not for me today. For the kid that took a long walk with his mom one day to get ice cream.
Good luck out there my friend.
A powerful reminder to let go of the past, embrace growth, and truly live, Thank you, like always for sharing.