#14 Done

This is 9 or 10.

This is today. This is 40.

I’m starting to age a bit more significantly. I haven’t been carded in a bar for the last couple of years. I guess time is speeding up, so I can’t afford to get stuck again. There was a time not too long ago that I believed that this birthday would be as significant as some make it out to be. But now I see it as just another marker in what is a very short and fragile life. A little over five years ago I was at my personal rock bottom. I had just finished up year ten of a screenwriting career that resulted in zero productions, $52,000 in school loans, and approximately $50,000 in pay, or $1.92 an hour. I love to write, but I chose screenwriting because that’s where the money was. It would be a means to an end. I was always a dreamer. Big dreams cost big money. Needless to say, I failed. And failed dreams are heavy. So I went bankrupt, wrote less and less, broke up with Sonia, moved in with Dad, and spent the next miserable month at Barnes and Noble reading and drinking coffee. I thought a lot about my Grandpa during this time. He was a kindred spirit. He had the heart and mind of a poet. As a young man, he had big dreams. Instead, as so often is the case, he lived the life given to him instead of the one he wanted. I wondered if that was just life. I idolized Ernest Hemingway, not so much for his writing, but for the way he lived. He was reckless, spontaneous and a world traveler. Everything I wanted to be. But expectations to conform is a difficult barrier to overcome. But there I was at Barnes and Noble when I came across this passage written by Jack London:

And that was it. I moved back home with Sonia and together we decided to live a different life. We had two options. We could lower the bar or start living the dream. We chose the latter. With one month’s rent in the bank, she quit her paying job and I quit my nonpaying job, and together we started our company. Unlike screenwriting, luck wasn’t needed. Just hard work. The more we put in, the more we got out. I’m proud of what we have created, but in the end it’s just a means to live a more spontaneous and reckless life. There will no doubt be consequences. Hardships are certain to come and we won’t be as prepared as we could’ve been. But no matter how bad it may get… We had Paris. We had oysters. And we had fun.