So I turned 20 today. So far it's not been a bad day, I'm working today though lol. I'll make sure to ask for my 21st off, everyone seems to have birthday plans that they didn't tell me about.

How do I feel about being 20 now? Not too different than I did yesterday as a 19 year old, but I have some thoughts that I've had lately, a reflection of sorts.

the first 10 years of my life were pretty awesome. I didn't have much interaction with my father, but my mom is a great mother. I was a smart, athletic little kid. I had a lot of fun then. But somewhere after I turned 10 things went downhill. My life was and still is pretty good, but I became lazy. I gave up on sports and started to get chubbier, and somewhere in the third grade I figured out that my teacher never checked homework on fridays, so I stopped doing homework on thursdays, which eventually led to me not doing homework anymore at all. I was still just as smart as always, but my grades from that point forward have been much lower than they should be.

This isn't just about my grades though, this laziness, this complacency with being below average -which I know I'm not-, has carried over into everything. 20 years old, most of my peers will be starting their junior year of college this fall, meanwhile I don't know whether I can say I'm even a sophomore or still a freshman. I fail and drop courses often, I don't know where I'm headed or how I can possibly get anywhere at all. This applies to my artwork too - I want to get better, yet I can't bother myself to actually practice or use references. I just want to be better without all the hard work and agony. When shit gets too tough, I just give up. This has to stop.

I was talking to the other day about Fullmetal Alchemist, and it's strong emphasis on Alchemy and the principle of "Equivalent Exchange". Alchemy is the process of trasnmuting one object to another, through the process of understanding, deconstructing, and then reconstructing. I believe that this is literally how things work and change in the real world, but the problem is that I'm stuck somewhere...

I believe that I understand my problems well enough. "I want to draw better, so I have to practice more", or "I want to get through school, so I need to study". But I think where I get stuck is that I can't deconstruct myself, or break down my old habits and mannerisms. I do good enough to acknowledge my faults, but I don't do anything with that knowledge. Maybe this means I don't even truly understand what's wrong with me?

tl;dr: I sabotage myself constantly and without fail, and I want to end this cycle. Here's to a year of deconstructing my old self and building myself anew.