After I broke up with my ex and ended my very first (!) relationshit, I spiraled. Oh boy, did I spiral. I mean, nothing in the realm of the Lindsanity route, but for a kid who was a straight A student and only did homework and never partied or drank and beat people up or got stabbed in Red Lobsters (obvio this was during my good ol’ High School days since all of college was pretty much a clusterfuck of Jameson and throw up), I regressed. Back to the “I’m not gonna go to class” days or the “I’m gonna drink so much just to forget the night” days or the “I NEED to hookup with anyone/anything that can walk/suck” days. Which were so much fun! Don’t get me wrong, I lived the single life UP as soon as I had it again. This might make me sound like a complete slore (slut + whore), but I feel like it’s normal. Aren’t the 20’s supposed to be a time when you make bad decisions and semi-but-not-really regret them the next day, or the next day, or the next day? If Helen Mirren says we’re supposed to make bad decisions when we’re young cuz we’re young and bad decisions are the only ones we’re supposed to make (she really did say that b.t.dubs), then what the fuck is the problem?!

Am I rambling? I’m pre-ty sure I’m rambling. There’s a point I swear. I won’t say that that was the lowest point in my life cuz there have been way worse (hello? Red Lobster?), but it was enough of a change in everything that was normal in my life to make me take notice. That coupled with a very pea-sized amount of drama in July awoke something in me. It’s hard to pinpoint the change but I know it happened.

I think this is what happened: I learned that my frivolous money-spending ways of the past, aka blowing paychecks before I actually got them, dropping G’s from a sport’s scholarship in Vegas, had to stop. If I wanted to meet the LA goal that I set for myself a long time ago, something had to give. And that something was a shopping spree! understanding what I had to let go of: I had to let go of the extra spending. I had to let go of the negative energy from the people who surrounded me. I had to stop going out every weekend. I had to stop hooking up. I had to grow the mutherfuck up!

Work has completely consumed me! And trust me, the “me” from a few months ago would give anything to get to sit around at home all day and blog about the poop I just pooped. But it’s turned into something that has given me not only a ton of money (seriously, it’s the first time in years my bank account has had more than 3 figures) but a new way to connect to the old HS me who was proud of the work he did and wanted to do everything he could to be a better man (boy? I’m fucking up my tenses left and right so it doesn’t even matter). Today is Labor Day and I have NEVER understood how good it feels to make it to this day. SInce I started my second job a month and a half ago, I haven’t had a day off from work until today. And it feels damn good! I think about the hard work I’ve done and the long and tedious hours I’ve accumulated and, of course the money, that I’ve never been more happy to have. Not because I know I could drop it all on all the clothes a young man of my high-maintenance stature could ever dream of (and boy, do I dream), but because I know it’s going towards everything I want for my future: a career that gives me happiness and not just paychecks and a life of security that allows me to give myself to someone who will help me raise a family who is not just a hookup. Don’t even get me started on the whole celibacy thing. That’s a battle that bears explaining another day.

So I’ve decided to make Labor Day a personal holiday. A holiday when I take time off to reflect on what it is I see myself doing in the next couple of years and how I’m gonna get there. A day that I reflect on the HUGE amount of financial, emotional and personal success I’ve achieved since graduating from colegio…and also a day that I give in to my high-maintenance desires and splurge on something amazing!!!

What? We deserve it every once in a while :)