but I know I see the people around me doing stuff and having stuff and I think, “it never even occurred to me that was possible.” Part of the problem has been money and time, but I know a big part of it is awareness too. I got really sick about six years ago – the worst and most prolonged flare-up of my health condition ever thanks to a ridiculous amount of stressful stuff happening at once – and I lost pretty much everything I had, and my sense of what I could have in life just sort of caved in. It’s taken me a while to even consider that I could still actually have a normal life now that I’m better (and REALLY unlikely to ever go through a period that stressful again; that was something on the order of supernatural it was so bad).
One thing I’m aware of at the moment is that I want to see concerts like one of my friends does. He’s seen all the best acts…meanwhile I usually don’t even know they were anywhere near town until he mentions in passing what a great show it was. Our lifestyles are completely different – he does pretty heavy socializing and a fair amount of media consumption, whereas I stick to a few close friends like glue and I really hate mainstream media. I’m thinking I need to somehow plug into this stream of information.
I know there are other things present in others’ lifestyles that I’d like to bring into mine but that’s the top one on my mind right now.
...Oh, and I just thought of something else! It’s sort of connected I guess. I feel like I’m not really a normal person because I never go to book shops or record stores or anything anymore. I originally stopped doing that because I was too busy trying to make money, and unsuccessful enough at making money that I knew I’d never really have money to buy anything if I saw something I liked…but ya know, book and record stores are a place to see what’s happening and maybe run into somebody interesting, and there’s no rule that says I have to buy anything there. Besides, I’m great at finding things cheap or free – if I see something really cool I can probably find it on eBay for a quarter of the cost. Heck, that’s like a game to me.
