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Marc Mason is a freelance writer based in Tempe, AZ.
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HAPPY NONSENSE: POP CULTURE CONFIDENTIAL
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Monday, August 08, 2005
DECISIONS
First, let me apologize for the sparseness of posting to this page.
It’s been a busy summer. I’ve been working insanely hard to try and get a couple of writing projects off the ground, and that’s eaten up a lot of my time and energy. Throw in trying to have a semblance of a social life and the writing commitments I already have, and something has had to give. Unfortunately, it’s this place. I will try and do better, but I can’t promise anything at the moment.
I’m writing today because we’re at a time near and dear to my heart. Early August, you see, is a time when I get to feel good about the choices I’ve made.
We all make decisions every day that change our course. Most days those are minor corrections at best, but seventeen years ago, I made the first really good decision of my life: I moved to Arizona and started over from scratch.
Not too many people wanted me to move here. And I certainly didn’t get a lot of support or belief that I’d succeed and stay here long term. I grew up in an area that is populated mostly by people who grew up there themselves. 95% of the people I went to school with were staying close and going to a state school, and a solid chunk of them are still living within an hour of where we graduated. It’s pretty much the accepted norm.
And that’s fine for them. If I had to guess, I’d suppose that the great majority of them are very happy with where they’re at. I think that’s cool, though for a long time I admit to believing they were foolish. But I knew I would never, and I mean never be happy with staying there. I was already a depressed and unhappy kid, with an encroaching sense of “life claustrophobia”, and I felt deep in my soul like I had to do something to find myself, and I had to be somewhere else to do it. Small town life is insidious; I would always be that “kid” in my hometown, no matter how old I got. You’re not allowed to grow or change, you see.
So I came out here, and I struggled a bit. I had my moments of doubt, and faithlessness, but as time passed, I got more and more accustomed to life in the desert, and I knew I was home. That this was where I was meant to be. No matter how many people obnoxiously asked me “have you thought about moving home?” as if they couldn’t believe I could possibly be satisfied living out here (and it happened as recently as a year ago!), I kept a straight face, though I stopped being as polite with my responses.
It’s easy to examine your life and look back at the bad choices you’ve made, and wonder how things would have turned out if you hadn’t been so damned dumb, but it’s even more important to take a look back and examine the things you’ve done correctly. I’ve now lived in Arizona just one year less than I lived in Indiana, but I know this: I’ve lived a lot more here than I would have anywhere else.
10:25 AM
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