Busy times, and Dreams Notes to My 14 Year-Old Self

It’s a busy time for me, hectic with projects at work and tasks that keep me stressed and buys. That said, looking back, I have come a long way since last year and learned a lot. Writing technical proposals is easy for me now, and I can helped newer members of the team figure out the technical details and how to make their proposals better. I’ve also been able to do some technical work, and was able to contribute to our lunar project, though I wish I had taken my code a little further and gotten more impressive results.

At the moment, I’m mostly working on two event-based ideas – to watch for unexpected signals. The writing part isn’t bad, but they’re long… up to thirty-five pages each and people asked me a bunch of times to help Patrick. Of course, I enjoyed helping him out, but it was extra work on my plate. I’ve noticed I really appreciated the opportunity to mentor him a bit. Then yesterday, at karate class I ended up talking to Ellianna as we got assigned “self-defense” practice together. She’s a “young woman” in our class – which I cringe to even type out. Basically, she’s a teenager, maybe 13-14 and in 8th grade, so she was complaining about algebra and how boring and long her day felt. The next thing I knew I was slipping into mentor mode… telling her things will get better in high school, she’ll be able to choose some of her classes and can do more of what she wants, might be able to join theater club or art class, and stuff like that. Typing it up, I guess it sounds a bit likeI’m an old man leecturing a kid, and maybe I was, but it didn’t feel that way. It was a natural and nice conversation, and funny to think we’ve been in class about a year together but haven’t really talked. I hope she really does enjoy high school.

Having that experience reminded me how much I appreciated also having younger people in our dojo at my old dojo in Chicago. I guess I like teaching and working with kids. Sometimes I think it’s a good time for me to think about a career shift to education, but oof… the education system is a complete mess right now, and I would be taking a pay cut, and probably forced to work long hours after school grading our running one of the school sports. That said, I don’t know. It sort of feels right. I have it in mind for the future, especially if Gina and I manage to have kids.

We’re working on that now. It has been a rough couple of months for that, actually. When we started dating, I brought it up as important to me, so she froze some of her eggs. Well, we finally took the leap, spent about $18000, unfroze, made some embryos, and went for it. I dunno… I thought we would be readiness for the pregnancy in December. Instead, some of the embryos were really good… but by the time they finished thawing, all of them were dead or had serious issues. Bad luck, and very depressing. So now we’re trying naturally, even though it’s late in life… and debating our other options. Having a kid has become important to me, so this is tough, and has left me with some soul searching to do.

I had a dream last night, or maybe it was just groggy morning thoughts, that I could send my soul back to my 14 or 15 year old body and share messages with myself for a few days before my memories started to fade. Of course, I started coming up with a list. It should probably be a whole other entry… There were obvious things, and maybe not so obvious one.

Eat healthier… lots of protein and veggies. Get whey protein and hit the gym at high school
Go to theater club, take art class, start at the dojo nearby ASAP
Apply to good schools… don’t settle for the one nearby even if mom and dad want you to. Apply to JHU, NYU.
Take care of your sister… mentor help, buy her gifts. Help her find a good college to go to.
Read lots of books. Find good classic SciFi and Fantasy.
Write. More. Often.
Don’t binge drink, always drink water, take care of your brain
Watch Matrix at the theater. You won’t regret it.
Go to Burning Man as soon as you can.
Find your people. Once you’re in college, find the kink scene… be yourself, make friends.
Don’t be afraid of what they’ll think.
Buy Bitcoin and Microsoft stock. Save it till you’re 40.
Look for Gina M. in NYC
Have kids before 35.
Memorize this list.
Keep that online journal.

It’s funny what makes it on the list and what doesn’t. Then it got me thinking… what notes would I write to myself now if me from 25 years in the future came back? Hmmm… maybe that’s the point of the whole exercise, eh?