I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!!

But soon enough I'll probably be taking antibiotic pills. [I may have bronchitis. More on that in 2 paragraphs.]

I've been hanging out like there's no tomorrow for several weeks, ever since friends started coming back from college for Christmas break. There were a couple days with Daniel, Justin and Betsy, then the wild Friday night care-group-party-and-beyond, crashing at the airport at 5:30am and flying to Chicago for Christmas. The night I flew back from Chicago Justin and I were out till 4am, I had one evening Thursday to catch up, and then Friday it was out till 2 or so at Betsy's, then Akron Saturday afternoon, and the fun really began!

I had a realization tonight as I finally got a shower, feeling almost like a stranger in my home, where I've been but a ghost of a resident for days. It was more than the warning thought that's been wagging its finger at me every time I stop to take a glance backwards: "You can't keep doing this! You can't work in a no-mercy real world job and keep your foot in the heedless college crowd that stays up like there's no tomorrow because there hardly because they sleep till 3pm the next day!" That thought has been amply realized in the continued worsening of my throat and voice, and the deathly weight of tiredness that leaded my limbs and dragged my eyelids shut on Thursday, literally while standing up.

The realization was not that I *can't* be doing this forever, but that I *won't* be doing it forever. At some point, probably within a year, I will not be a single man anymore. Certainly in five years (if the good Lord's willin' and creek don't rise) it would be strange, and not too great, if I was still hanging out all night entertaining myself with movies and games and young unattached friends.

I went out to lunch Friday with my boss and a sand salesman, and they were talking at length about their lives - being married, kids, watching the money slip away, watching the years slip by. I do not believe that life has to be a hopeless and nearly joyless trap like it is for them, and I do not believe that my life will be like that, but it did slap a vivid picture of real life right in my face. Things do actually change from how they've been, and it actually is possible (and will happen) that I'll be the guy who goes home early and leaves the laughter behind to go sleep and be responsible. That I will go home and eat sandwiches because I shouldn't pay $12 for a restaurant meal.

What's the application of this? Well, to put it starkly, it means these past weeks are probably one of the last times I will be hanging out so crazily. [And by crazy I mean skipping by home at 11:46pm after work, care group and Fuel 'n' Fuddle, stuffing my backpack with clothes and some deodorant, hopping in somebody's car back to the Harvey's, playing pool, watching The Godfather II till 4am, waking up, eating pancakes, driving a vanfull of chattering people to a museum, wandering around, swinging by the oriental drug store to buy shrimp crackers, hitting up Chick-Fil-A with a group of 17, jumping over to the thrift store, and returning again to the Harvey's house for pool, music, the Steelers game and more entertainment of myself by and with others.] I may have a few of these carefree periods left, but their days are numbered, mark my words. And yours are too, if you hope to be anything but a petty and self-serving child all your life.

What's the point? I'm not sure, honestly. I wanted to write this post to break my spell of not blogging, to write down this realization, and to try to convey the finality and real-ness of its emotional impact. I'm still going to dead fish-it tomorrow -- drive to church and go from there, not knowing wherest and whenst I will go, flitting from person to person, group to group, conversation to conversation, joke to joke, activity to activity. A life full of failures has dulled any recognizable motivation to be all responsible and think ahead and cut everything out now so that at some magical point in the future everything'll be great, which would be a natural action point from what I've just written.

Somehow, it feels like there is value in realizing that our youthful days are numbered, and that the adults who are asleep right now will inevitably be us.
Enjoy it now! And don't be surprised at the future.

--JPB