i’m 25 now. my brain is fully developed (it’s not). so what’s more fitting than shortly after celebrating than to have my first quarter life crisis. one that is centered on my current path in life that i have deemed necessary and essential already? i don’t understand why we collectively call quarter and midlife crises “quarter” and “midlife” crises. the average american male lives to be about 75 and some change. anything more is a blessing apparently. psalm 90:10. i’ve always heard it from hers. so why not call a quarter life crisis a “thirdish" life crisis, and a midlife crisis a “time’s ticking” or something. or a “last call”. wait, a “last call” is actually pretty good. most of our parents could be in a “last call”. how are they living? i think the source of my crisis is the pressure of settling in now that i am starting to feel more acclimated to my environment and the “newness” of where i am is subsiding. don’t get me wrong at times living here sucks incredibly. but simultaneously i feel like my year is actually about to begin. all of the previous months were just trials for my nervous system. my nervous system is looking forward to august. i went out with my people here the other night and i felt myself slowly returning to a sense of who i am instinctively. who i’ve always been. who i really want to be. i’m slowly beginning to feel more comfortable just being in my body again around those i care about here and to be honest i don’t know what to make of it yet. i’m sure this realization will lead to a private wave of emotion at some point in the near future. significant experiences in my life sometimes take a while to fully hit me. this is probably why the actual act of moving state to state has never been an issue for me until after i'm fully moved and find myself sitting alone on a curb outside of my new house and confronted by my subconscious about who and what i am fully leaving behind. true story. real existential life crises cannot be ignored or thrown by the wayside. which you would think is obvious but complacency and inaction seem to possess us all in a way most are unaware of or feel completely inept to do anything about. especially today. it’s incredibly sad. for me, intense existential moments that arise from seasons of action and alignment expresses itself in the form of sudden intense anxiety wrapped around unwarranted doubt. i say unwarranted because when i’m convinced that a path i am currently taking is worth it after all the prayer, trade-offs, and risks have been accessed, any feeling reminiscent of anixety i grapple with i immediately question its validity. when it is just raw negativity not backed by any legitimate reason other than doubt, it’s bullshit. like deterioration without a catalyst. i have to continue to trust, push forward, and leave it to god to deal with. too many times in my life i have given up on outlets, interests, and potential paths in my life behind a smokescreen of exploration. which is partially true. but the real reason behind why i have jumped ship while on various paths in my life is because when the going gets tough, i quit. and i quit because i tell myself i just wasn’t interested anymore. and again, sometimes true. but mostly it's because i had never fully come to terms with the fact that you have to work for everything that matters to you in life. no matter how easy or difficult, interested or not. you have to work. we are called to work. there is purpose in work. not necessarily through a “job”, but through work itself. consciously i had known that, but deeply i never came to agreement with. but the beauty of it is you get to pick the work you want to do. something that speaks to you. what i am doing right now i have to see through. sacrifice and all. for my own sake, my own calling, and for my own redemption for what i have abandoned in the past. ironically, now for the first time in my life feeling aligned behind a calling, struggle and all, i don’t want to be a sisyphus figure anymore. i want to be fully present in however long this current calling is for. knowing that there really isn't ever an “end goal.” “happily ever after” is a myth. we get that when we’re done here. hopefully all of us.

i’ve rekindled a relationship with my father. so there’s the answer to that question from march. even as i’m writing this section i’m still not quite sure what i want to say on this matter. i have procrastinated on this section for a while now (sorry dominique). but i do want to write about it. i should write about it. what i do know about it is that after ten years really of no contact i was wrong about how i chose to view the nature of our relationship post my parent’s divorce. but not completely at the same time. it’s weird. i had my reasons that i still stand by to this day. but after ten years of no contact i was certain that if he were to pass away i would be okay. empowered even. looking forward to it if i were being brutally honest. i was convinced that my father’s shortcomings were always going to get the best of him and that was going to be the summary of his life. if he really wanted to change he would’ve done so a long time ago. when he was losing the woman he loved and a relationship with his children through his actions and beahviors. i saw him this month at an important event that pertained to my brother. usually when i happen to see him sparsely for unrelated familial reasonings it’s quick, cordial, and i’m out of there. there’s history. but seeing him this time around was stranger than usual. he was acting stranger than usual. i saw a man who was showing visible signs of wear and tear through the decisions he had made in his life. decisions pertaining to how one will choose to conduct themselves as a man in this life. and i’ll leave that at that. he wouldn’t stop talking about mortality. there it was. he looked whatever the balance of disheveled and put together is called. and in what would have been taken as poor judgement at one time in my life, i decided to see him one-on-one on this trip after an invitation was extended. when i saw him again i reminded him of the words i shared with him in writing on may 4th 2023. i told him those words were the key to the lock that was everything between us and what you will do with that key will be up to you. i told him it’s not going to be easy, but necessary once you decide you’re ready to make that decision to open the lock. but until then you don't exist to me. and to my surprise later that night, i received the words from him that i had always wanted to receive from him during my time on this planet. he unlocked the lock. i broke down that night. i will keep the details of those words private. they will be used as my personal antitode to heal my past trauma. it will take time. rekindling will take time. but i was wrong to cling to my pride and supposed certainty of my father’s life and the relationship that i had with him this past decade. shortcomings and all. i came to the uncomfortable truth that night that if he were to pass with our unresolved tension and trauma still left unresolved, i would be devastated. i saw the future of that outcome that night. gut check. i made a decision ten years ago that i couldn’t really live my life until he was off this planet. at the time there was something about the two of us breathing the same air at the same time with our history that just didn’t feel right with me. i thought it was unfair. i was wrong to have naively convinced myself of this and to live my life as such. i have half lived through so much in my life because of this decision. relationships that i now wish i had back. routes that i now wish i would have pursued. that burden is now lifted. it still doesn't feel real. it’s going to take time.

last year, a roller coaster that i grew up going on and loved at universal studios in orlando closed down permanently. the hollywood rip ride rockit. i was really upset. if you’ve never been to the park or rode it before, the ride concept was that it was a full fledge roller coaster that allowed you to listen to music as you were on the ride. it opened in the late 2000s and was injected with a ton of music from umg at the time that some songs would go on to be y2k classics. as a kid who loved roller coasters and music i was mesmerized that this was even possible to do. through this ride, i was introduced to n.e.r.d. (big), no doubt, and modest mouse (through the secret playlist). along with artists that i had damn near idolized growing up like ye, beastie boys, and daft punk. admittedly, the ride experience itself kinda sucked outside of the drop and the view overlooking orlando. it broke down a lot and one time i got stuck on the ride before the drop, and after waiting for twenty minutes in what felt like you were going to fall backwards out of your seat (iykyk) we were all escorted off the ride using the stairs on the side. super trippy. as it got more dilapidated over the years it felt like you got out of a fight every time you got off the ride. but i loved it. and while i lived in orlando for a brief period of time, going to the parks with my jitty friends to ride rides, do stupid shit, and hang with girls we just met was some of the most fun i’ve ever had growing up. i was talking to a childhood friend recently who lives in orlando about what’s coming soon to the parks and eventually we got reminiscent about the times we had when we were jits. times we still have going to the parks today. they are a big part of my childhood. there isn’t much else to do in orlando outside of the shoddy night life, the beaches on the outskirts, or anything tourist related. i always thought theme parks were cool and held an element of magic to them through their inherent suspension of disbelief. especially when i was a kid. we lose that as we get older and you really got to get it where you can somewhere. my grandfather helped build epcot which is what relocated my mother’s family to central florida from jersey, so it must be in my blood or something. however, it does seem like theme park culture today can be pretty disgusting and self-inflict people into a life of arrested development and peter pan syndrome. carrying over into their lives outside the parks. which is sad and unfortunate. there’s no balance in that life. but in and of itself, i think the parks are pretty cool. especially roller coasters and thrill rides. i honest to god think that amusement parks are the perfect place for a kid to conquer fear in a fun and healthy way. or anyone for that matter. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve gotten off of rides where kids were petrified beforehand in what to them loos like an unfathomable behemoth from hell, to suddenly becoming ecstatic that they conquered their fears and really enjoyed the experience. kids don’t understand engineering or what it takes to concoct a roller coaster. they just see what this thing is doing to other human’s bodies from hundreds of feet in the air and it can be overstimulating. my brother is still like this. don't tell him i said that. they have to take a leap of faith in what they can't fully understand and trust that they could really enjoy it. i was once that kid as well. a lot of us were. some still are. i smile internally every time i see a kid conquer their fears. i see myself.

- jacob