It could be a blog post tangential to it, though, if you're okay with that. Because I'm feeling right now that weird sort of depression and emptiness that I usually feel when I finish up a dumb extended blog project like this. I do all sorts of complaining when I'm in the middle of it, but then, when it's over, I start to feel a little lost, ya know? And it doesn't help when those feelings are mixed in with your typical run of the mill "end of summer" feelings, the loss of supposed "freedom" and whatnot. School's started, the leaves are changing, another year is starting to come to a close, that sort of thing. I don't like it.
As insane as it sounds, doing something like watching the same episode of television every day and writing about it gave me a sense of purpose. It was stupid, and I'll continue to call it "stupid" because self-deprecation feels right in these sort of situations, but still—a tangible purpose. It was something that I could call my own. It was the only thing in my life that I could point to and not feel like I was experiencing imposter syndrome. I feel like a moron in grad school, I feel useless at work, I feel my shortcomings magnified at home, but here? On the blog? When writing incessantly about an insignificant, uninspiring, completely forgettable TV sitcom episode from 2005? That's when I felt alive.
Something like that also keeps me tethered to the present. This has a lot to do with a certain fear of the future. I'm not sure I can articulate it as well as I'd like to, but I think that it isn't a coincidence that the last time I felt these specific feelings—the fall of 2017, after the Summer of New blog project—that it was shortly after that I lashed out and behaved poorly and tried to implode my life in a very specific and forever unforgivable way. I'm not saying that I was an asshole because I wasn't doing something "new" every day anymore, but I'm also not saying that the two were completely unrelated.
It sounds like an incredibly toxic way to live, and I guess at this point I'm trying to be self-aware in terms of those tendencies within me. If I can point to those feelings and give them a name, then I can process them in a more healthy manner in the future. I can make better decisions, even in the face of loss and grief.
I know that this sounds ridiculous, laughable, insane to be talking about "loss" and "grief" in the context of Grannies Gone Wild. It is indeed ridiculous, and laughable, and insane. But one thing I refuse to feel is shame over that fact. It only sounds laughable because the phrase "Grannies Gone Wild" is intended to cause laughs. I don't necessarily think, however, that having mixed feelings about the ending of something is something to feel embarrassed about, despite that silly context.
Look, I'm trying to build a case here for blogging. That's really what it comes down to. I waver from time to time as to its merits (we all do), but what it comes down to for me is this. Blogging keeps me tethered to reality. It gives me a concrete purpose. I know that it's not "Important" with a capital I. I know that it at times seems useless and pathetic (so much so that I usually feel uncomfortable talking about it in public). But as long as I believe it to be true—that this is worth the time and effort—then it's true.
This is why hobbies are therapeutic. No one building model trains in their basement has any illusion of grandeur, or thinks for a single second that the hobby is contributing to the greater good. It's just something someone does to make themselves feel better. Writing makes me feel better. I'm cool with people popping in and checking out my model trains whenever they feel like it or even helping me paint the caboose if they feel inspired to do so. I want that for my friends, because I want them to feel the way I feel. I want that for them, but ultimately, I need it for me.
I think this blog post has become a bit of a State of the Union address re: Puke on Your Birthday, and I'm cool with that. It's a good time for that. I'm still committed to the whole blogging-every-day thing (today is the 399th day in a row that Puke on Your Birthday has published something), so there's that. I'll continue to move slowly through my list of movies. I'll continue to explore the so-called classics in music. I'll continue to anchor everything we do here in the communal joys of Record Club.
But at the end of the day, I think I just needed to take a day to reconvince myself that this is worth it, to blog every day, to occasionally wake up early to make time to do it, to navigate having a simple hobby in the face of an increasingly complicated life. Cheyenne said it best: "I realized why people do it. It felt really good." I'm just trying to chase that feeling, and this is the only way I know how. The only way that doesn't make me feel like a complete fucking asshole, anyway.
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