Someone once told me “ya know Andy, people change.” That was just 4 years ago, and at the time I really was too young and naive to comprehend what that really meant. At the time, I thought my life was pretty well set. Even though I wasn’t in college, was working retail, and was renting. I thought I would be married by the age I am now. I figured, things would work themselves out over time. Change? No. I’m 21 years old, I’ve already become the person I would be for the rest of my life.
Boy was I gravely wrong. I have changed more in the past 4 years, then I did the 21 years leading up to it. I’m not married, in fact I’m single. And I’m fine with that. Its almost as if my mind really started to turn itself on. Wake up moron. Get you’re act together. Indeed something inside of me did click. I think dealing with losing a very special person in my life had something to do with that. I had a lot of time to sit back and ponder. At the time, I thought I would never get out of my rut. I never thought I would want to, or even need to go to college. Part of that had to do with the success my dad accomplished in his lifetime. The other part of me had no idea what I wanted to do. As I began to “wake up” I started thinking very hard what I would, if I decided to to so, go to school for. My first thoughts lead me to Business. I could start my own Business. That is sort of what I ended up going to Anoka Ramsey for in the first place. Intro to Business with Jonathan Gallop. A local Attorney who was teaching this course. A hilarious, crazy bastard, who really let us know just how hard starting up a business is. After his class, I realized its not what I want to be, and quit school alltogether. Working at the bike shop became my priority.
I started thinking about writing. What about journalism? I always had good grades back in the day for English, Language Arts, and classes of that nature. Math, Science, Geography? Fuggetaboutit. Writing was the only thing in High School I enjoyed. I started to indulge myself in the writing of Hunter S. Thompson. Most people relate to him and his drug crazed “failed” experiement of Gonzo Journalism known as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This new form of journalism he started to try out really got me thinking. Journalism with a twist? Sort of. He has also been linked to being one of the first persons to use New Journalism, which is much more popular in today’s world. I could do that. I love writing. Thats why I started a blog. Get my thoughts out there. So there it is. Hopefully within the next year or so, I am going back to school for Journalism, and English. I never in a million years thought of doing this 4 years ago.
Books? Talk Radio? These two terms didn’t exist in my mind or vocabulary 4 years ago. Honestly, I loathed books. Couldn’t stand the things. Nowadays, I can’t get enought of them. I think the mind takes in more information when that person reads it, not watching it. I love sitting out on my front porch, with a glass of SoCo, a nice chair, and tons of daylight. Talk radio is the same. I hated it whan I had to listen to that stuff at work. I brought in a separate radio on my bench so I could faze out that non-stop banter. Yet, here I am, right now as I write this, listening to Garage Logic, taking in all the info, and banter I can get.
I would be nice to have known back then what I know now, but then again, thats what makes life so unpredicable, surprising, and exciting. Not only do people change, I think people change througout our lifetimes. So yes, “people do change”, and ya know what? Change is good.