So now I am older, than my mother and father, when they had their daughter. Now, what does that say about me?

— Fleet Foxes

It says little, really.

While I’d love to start a blog with a focus or some hint of an overarching theme, I’m just writing for the sake of getting words out. Maybe along the way it will all take shape and reach entelechy. In the meantime, please pardon the Dickens style cold open because at this point in my life it really is the best of times and the worst of times—an indistinguishable point between the milestones of life. I suppose 2016 is off to a notable start; I recently bought a home with my girlfriend, Devyn, and we got a puppy—a tiny toy poodle named Leo.

Other than that, all is quiet on the western front. There are no Apatownian archetypes shaping the current landscape. I’m not forty. I don’t have kids—in utero or otherwise. And I’m two years steady in a loving relationship. I’ve been with my current employer for over a year (my longest stretch anywhere since I was a high-pitched, high-schooler selling Tempur-Pedic slippers for Brookstone). Without fearing any Faustian repercussions, I am quite simply … content.

Maybe this is the best way to start things, unfettered by circumstance, not searching for significance. Trust me, it beats the brooding poetry and prose of my formative, angst-filled Myspace blog years. I’ll spare you the knee-jerk copy birthed from the failed three month old relationships and unrequited love that assuredly spelt at that time an end to the meaning of my brief existence. Suffice it to say, in one stanza, I compared myself to a prawn. If in the course of my writings here I ever become guilty of this sin, which is certainly within the realm of possibility given my melancholy temperament, please feel free to publicly ridicule me. In fact, I think some ground rules for my writings wouldn’t hurt. I pledge:

• To be honest with you the way I would be honest with a $500 / hour therapist (When you’re paying that much, what’s the point in lying to them?)
• To keep a truly open mind to the opinions and responses of everyone here (This doesn’t mean I won’t reject your ideas, but I will strive to keep at bay any of my deep seated or deep-south programming.)
• To delete or hide any comments from my close acquaintances (They have their own channels for input into my life; I’d rather let the general public set the tone in this one.)

That’s a simple enough code, right? Honesty, open-mindedness and no op-eds from my close friends and family. Now that we have structure out of the way, where was I? Oh yeah, nowhere in particular. To quote Dawes, “when you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” Not to say I don’t personally know where I am going. I have plans for life; some big ones are on the horizon. But as far as plans for this blog …

I remember when I moved back home to Birmingham at the end of my didactic blur at Full Sail University in Orlando. All my earthly possessions were stuffed into the back seat of my car—with room to spare. It was liberating, the knowledge that there was nothing weighing me down or stopping me from going just about anywhere. I reflect on this from the hypocrisy of filling a new home with Craigslist found Mid-century modern furniture. But that’s not the point. The point is this: buckle up, because this could go anywhere.