In retrospect, I'm still ok.

There comes a time in your life when you can divide a century by your age and come out with a relatively low number. Thursday's number is 4.

I've been thinking about what to do in celebration of the day, which is better than what I've been thinking about the couple weeks before. For anyone who knows me, I'm kind of a nut when it comes to my birthday. I get really sad for a couple of reasons:

Reason 1: I stop thinking my friends are really my friends. Instead I consider them to be people who just happen to be in my life for reasons of convenience.

Reason 2: I think about how relatively little I have accomplished in my life and all the things that I don't have.

Reason 3: I'm (with the exception of one year) always single. And as the past five years may dictate, I don't even get a birthday fuck. W.T.H.

Now imagine a life without sex, friends and goals. All your left with is food, and even the really great food doesn't taste as good without people to share it with or things to celebrate. This is what occurs annually from March 10 to April 10.

As it stands, in my old age, I seem to have matured a bit. Because reasons 1 and 3 don't seem to bother me that much anymore. In my distance from home and in the friendships that I've forged post-depression, I find a little more stability in my current relationships. And my mindset is less prone to disregard them in a sweep of emotional volatility.

It remains though, that number 2 is a huge one again. And in light of everything that I wish I had accomplished this year I accomplished very little. I got a better job, but it still pays crap. I got a dog, and at least we seem to have a pretty good relationship lately. I've travelled a decent amount, which is an important goal. But career-wise... while I may have planted some seeds to what may eventually become a profitable business, I'm still buried deep under the soil waiting to germinate.

As a performer, I've seen what I used to see as great potential and talent wither away in the light of harsh realities. Now, I wonder if I can ever set foot on a stage and leave proudly again. Was my time in Berkeley as amateur as I think it might have been. Am I only really good, when very few others are trying?

Yes, the landscape appears desolate. And there are only a few, mostly trivial things that give me hope. That assuage my fears that at long last I am just *gasp* an average human being.

But somehow, among all the reasons I can find to give myself hope that I will make something of myself that I can be proud of, I find solace in a simple success: I'm still alive.

Now, I have not lived a very risky life. I didn't go to war for my country. While I would describe La Puente as ghetto, I don't think my life was ever in danger. To this day, the greatest physical threat to my life was probably a drunken night with a possible STD carrier. Though, I remember clearly, whether it was an actual threat or not, a time in my life when I believed in my heart and in my head that I would not survive the next couple of years.

I do remember feeling empty, and wanting to stop breathing all together. Since, if I was dead, there would at least be an explanation as to why I felt nothing. I remember crumbling to my knees in apartment B12 and in the most distraught state of mind I had ever felt, repeating to myself, "I can't do this. I can't do this."

I knew back then that I wasn't going to take my life. Rather I took a relatively "safe" overdose and hoped for the worst. That if there was a higher power out there he would look upon this poor coward who didn't take quite enough painkillers, and give him the extra nudge to get the hell off this planet.

What I also knew, was that there were two ways for me to go from that point. There was down, and there was up. Down led to a place where a higher power would have no place in stopping me. I could feel it. Just an extra nudge. A really bad argument. A momentary rush of emotion and lack of judgement...

I walked through the quieter streets of Shanghai today. Looking at small furniture shops, past parks booming with the beat of some drums. I walked to where the quiet streets opened to giant streets and retreated to more quiet ones. It reminded me of when I first came two years ago. I didn't need a jacket, because spring was finally here. I was happy that the new baby green leaves would remind me that every year is a new beginning, and that in this flawed place, I would somehow find something settling. I'm happy that I was born in April.

And then I bought myself a trumpet as a gift to myself. I thought it was the perfect present. I hadn't played in two years and when I brought it home, I crooned for about 30 minutes, barely playing out a whole octave of notes. Then I remembered when I was young, how hard I worked to be good. I practiced almost every day. 

Looking back, actually, nothing ever came easily. Talent is a high ceiling that you still have to climb up to. Life is an hour in open water, struggling to stay afloat. And I've survived my first fifteen minutes.