jeremy borger [blog]

Downloaded some Ben Folds and Jamie Cullum tunes f…

Downloaded some Ben Folds and Jamie Cullum tunes from iTunes this afternoon and went to go work out. It’s amazing how much music can have an emotional effect on me. I mean, so much so that my eyes were watering as I’m doing biceps curls. Ironic, actually. Doing the manly man thing of lifting weights but doing the unmanly thing of being in touch with my emotional side. It’s like taking NoDoze and sleeping pills in the same gulp.

Because you’re not allowed to think about anything besides work, girls and partying. Oh, and sports. But I can’t even fake that one anymore. So you work out and party and focus on work to try and forget what others have done to you and pretend like you’re too cool to care. Don’t let anyone in. Try to forget about the things that really matter and just focus on those quarterly sales numbers going up and up, quarter after quarter.

But every now and then, usually with the help of someone like Ben Folds or Jamie Cullum, I reconnect with who I am, what I believe and what I value. But emotions aren’t manly or mature. So I have to squash them down with drinking and fun and acting like someone I’m not. Keep up the fantasy and you don’t have to deal with reality. Because a one night stand is a lot easier than a relationship.

And sometimes I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing anymore, anyway. You hope one day to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” but you fear you’ll hear, “Nice going, dumbass.”

I walked into my condo the other day, looked out at the busy streets and all my furniture, and my MacBook and this cool place I bought, and I said to myself, “What the heck am I doing?” Because sometimes I still feel like a child. Like I’m playing grown up. “Ooo, look at me! I’m going out on dates and paying mortgages and wearing a tie and making money when I really should be hiding in a fort in someone’s basement.”

Am I the only one who thinks this way? Are people reading this thinking, “Yeah, I know what you mean,” or “Boy, that Jeremy sure is a dork! Let’s point at him and laugh!”

I’m too confused to grow up and too old to be a kid.