Milestones

So, this is post number four hundred. Yep, 400! I canny believe it either. I can barely remember when I set out blogging. I know I wasn't very good at it. I wrote short posts with little structure, terrible English and no audience. I won't direct you to the very first post I wrote for this blog. It's terrible, and I wouldn't hurt you like that.

I was hesitant about writing this post. It makes me feel old. And that got me thinking: something in society has made us mark milestones in our lives. Birthdays, anniversaries, heck I even purposely remember the anniversaries of days when I met my best friends. Things that mean a lot to us have a lot of special meaning that we put down on a calender. Of course, when people hit milestone birthdays, they try to avoid them. Thirty seems to be the big one, especially for those without children.

I can't explain that one. But I guess I felt the same sort of apprehension in this post. I wanted it to matter, you know? I wanted to do something that wouldn't just be a moan or a joke or just a statement that this blog is four hundred published posts old.

Four hundred... still feels weird.

I guess, if I were to try make this blog feel better about how many posts came through it, I would tell it what has been accomplished since the first post. But that's boring. I do those reflective posts a lot. So here's something new: The Rest is Silence was on stage this month and it raised over seven hundred euro for charity. Like, what? How did that happen?

Okay, I suppose it's because my college is awesome. If it weren't for the Drama Society putting on the play, and then the kind donations of the staff and students, we wouldn't have raised a cent. But we sold out. For the first time ever. I still can't believe that. I couldn't walk for half an hour.

And that's something I'll be trying to remember every year. On March 14th 2012, The Rest is Silence went on-stage for the first time ever, and it sold out.

I suppose more news is also in order: I'm writing a new play. I've actually begun writing it, so I can officially say that. I'm hoping to put it on in college next year. It's a supernatural mind-blower. I can't wait to get to work on it properly. And I hope people like it. That's always important for me. I don't just write for me. When I release something into the world, it's not for self-gratification (unless I'm just moaning on my blog, then it's just for emotional venting...). I like to entertain, and when I get nervous I can take solace in the fact that I can entertain from behind a page.

I won't make a full announcement about the play until it's finished and I have an idea about whether or not there will be a director for it. I may direct this one myself. It's not so difficult a topic to deal with as The Rest is Silence.

Back to the original point, though: should the milestones matter? Turning thirty isn't such a big deal, if you can look at your life the way other people do (most people can't... I'll probably be freaking out.) Anniversaries of friendships are probably just weird. And marking the first time my play went on stage every year will lose significance from the moment the lights go up on a second script.

And so, at post four hundred at Mightier Than the Sword (I can't believe I gave my blog such a clichéd name...), the milestone can be passed. For the next ninety nine posts, I don't have to worry the fear of my blog getting old again. (I got 99 problems but a milestone ain't one?) I can pretend that five hundred doesn't matter that much, and then it'll take three months to get the last four posts out into the world.

I suppose it's human nature to mark a milestone and do everything we can to avoid the ones that make us feel old. Damn you nihilism.

An Experience with Age

I've just watched Benjamin Button; you know, the movie staring Brad Pitt based on the short story by F Scott Fitzgerald? It's got me thinking, especially since I'm turning nineteen on Monday, and my friend Lisa brought up a feeling of "insignificance" regarding her own life, friends are leaving college and I'm releasing a book of poetry in a few weeks... what exactly will life have in store for me?

I don't normally even pretend to be philosophical, but come on... this is a matter of life and... well, a life less interesting! I could spend the rest of life writing away at this blog, releasing books of poetry and writing away, or I could do it with a family. But.. which one? I've never had a girlfriend, so it looks like the former for now, but seriously - when does one normally begin to realise the utter loneliness of one's life? Surely not before their birthday, and surely not before the most commercial day of the year?

Soon-to-be-nineteen year olds with a perfect bill of health should not have to consider the most complicated aspects of their lives, or indeed the simplest, depending on how you look at it. You know, when people say you "just know" when you meet "the One." I've met the One, but it wasn't any way romantic for me, because the person I refer to as "the One" is the person who keeps me sane, not the person I'm madly in love with. So what do I do?

I don't think I've ever felt so lost about my single status until right now. I thought I was entirely happy being the way I am, not having to worry about a whole other complicated relationship in my life. They don't always work for me, so why am I looking for one?

Is this what aging is? I've only ever grown up once in my lifetime, and it's still happening. I don't know how it feels. I need the guidance of someone older than me, someone with more experience, but I can't say it to my parents - they're not approachable in that sense, even if my mother thinks she is. She'd make suggestions about the identity of the girls in my life, not find me my answers.

Do writers really need someone there for them, or is that just me?