After a long break I'm writing again. I don't even know why I stopped. It wasn't a conscious decision. It wasn't that I woke up one morning and decided to take a break from the not-so-taxing writing. It was more like a gradual and very subtle decline in ideas - something I didn't even notice until recently.

On the other hand, I know exactly why you're reading this entry - lack of release. During the recent weeks I have discovered that I'm gravitating more and more toward the imaginary world. The books, the music, the TV, the internet - I use them as means to distract myself. For awhile it was OK, it felt normal to read while sitting in the bus, to listen to my walkman while going to work, to keep the computer (and/or TV) on while at home. But it got to me! Yesterday I came home and suddenly felt out of place. Like I had come from somewhere that had no connection to the physical aspects of my life - to the front door, to my dog, to my room. It was like the feeling you get after an especially vivid dream when you don't realise your whereabouts for the first few seconds. The only problem was that I hadn't woken up, I'd been living my life and it didn't even seem real because it was so drowned out by the imaginary.

So I am writing this because I need to get back something I've lost. Something that I didn't know was gone until I started missing it - my sense of self.

I don't know who I am anymore! But I'm hoping this will help me find out! So bear with me!

I guess this is what growing up means. Because I am growing up - finally! And it has come as a bit of a shock. Do you know what I've been doing for the past three months? I've been looking for an apartment. Not a rental. For something to buy and then live in - indefinitely! It's scary! Buying a place to live - it's not something children do, it's not something teenagers do, it's not something childish grown-ups do. It is something adults do! Does that mean I have to behave like one? No, scratch that! I'm already behaving like one. Today I spent the day running from hardware store to hardware store trying to figure out how much the repairs and renovations in the apartment will cost. And you know what? They're too expensive! I don't have the money for it! I don't want to borrow it but I don't have a choice. Because what use is an apartment I can't even live in? I guess I'm going to find out. Because starting from August 14, 2003 I will have a one-bedroom apartment. Unfurnished, undecorated, unliveable! But it will belong to me (well, more accurately, it will be mine after about 20 years when I'm done paying for it, but still…). Do you see why I'm having a serious identity crisis?

And what adds to that is the fact that I'm starting to doubt some basic principles I've laid my life on. It has nothing to do with the apartment but with my general belief in myself.

I've always been fairly egocentric. I have believed that what I do is right, what I feel is right, what I say is right and what I think is right. At least for me and at that moment. I can't be sure of that anymore. All this growing up seems to seal my fate. Like there can't be any changes in my situation anymore. I can't have a serious relationship, I can't have new friends, I can't have big parties, I can't have anything interesting. And all that because being an adult means stability and boredom. Rationally I know it isn't so. How could it be? But I've lived with this childish notion all my life - grown-ups are stable! Even my parents' divorce couldn't convince me different.

I'm growing up and there is nothing I can do about it. Or is there? I have other friends leading adult lives and they're OK. They might disappear to their work affairs or the world of banks and bills occasionally but they always come back. Why can't I be the same? There's no real reason, is there? Well… maybe there's one: my obsessive nature! I've been going on about my apartment for months. I'm pretty sure I've bored everyone to death and I still keep going on about it. Because that's what's central in my life right now. But will I be able to turn off the worrying and whining about the bills? About my neighbours? About the bureaucracy? Because that's what adults do. But I don't want to be about that because I would bore myself to death - and everyone else on the way. I guess I just have to make an effort to exit this narrow point-of-view and find some other attractions. But not TV on the internet. Because they don't provide solace, they provide distraction. I don't feel refreshed after a TV-marathon or hours on the internet. I feel distracted, like there was something else I was supposed to be doing...

It's the human interaction I'm missing. Being an accountant in a small company doesn't exactly give you a lot of opportunities to talk to people. And working in general means that nobody does anything during the week. TV provides no interaction whatsoever and even the internet is somewhat impersonal (though I must admit I've met a lot of great people online and reading some of the online journals almost provides interaction). I need people around me but they seem to be shrinking away. Some of my friends stayed in Tartu - I don't talk to them a lot. Some of my friends can't be around each other - I have to schedule them into my plans. Some of my friends have very little time for me - I have to fight to keep seeing them, and it's only too easy to give up. Some of my friends seem to have vanished from the face of the earth - I can't get in touch with them.

And that's what happens when you grow up. You form a cocoon around yourself and make your life as simple as possible, with as few distractions as possible. I don't want that! That's not my goal! I want my life to be complicated and unpredictable and interesting! I want it to be filled with new and old friends! I want it to have substance! But I have to work 5 days a week and spend the rest of the time worrying about real estate, money and cost of living. I have to be a grown-up! But I must schedule some time for being a child, because I miss my friends! They're the people who make life worth living and they don't want to be around me if I'm only talking about my boring grown-up stuff. So I have to make an effort for me as well as for them: I can't be occupied with my apartment, I can't be lazy and/or tired all the time and above all I CAN NEVER-EVER PREFER TV OR THE COMPUTER TO LIVING PEOPLE because they can't ever be substituted by machines!

P.S. This entry didn't come out as I'd planned it. The direction it took was a complete surprise to me. But it kind of was my intention because I haven't thought about this stuff for a long time - not as a whole anyway. I hope it stays and keeps making sense even after I lose this crazy mood I'm in.

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