Young & Old

My life is a Diet Coke commercial: At the end of the day, I leave my sexy, creative Chelsea-loft office wearing Lucky jeans and a $200 shirt, wink at the receptionist who secretly loves me, then hop into a cab to meet my model-perfect girlfriend for dinner. We chow at the best table in a swanky Brazillian-sushi-fusion place in Meatpacking before heading to the Flatiron Lounge for Sazeracs and Alaskan cocktails. Everyone we hang out with has perfect teeth, perfect clothes and perfect lives. Also, a tiny mouse could ski down my abs like they were moguls in Vail. I have a condo in Vail.

Yeah so my life is more of a Kevin James movie: I work for a non-profit in the basement of a midtown apartment building. Our dress code makes the J.C. Penny catalogue look like the Paul Smith catalogue and although we don't cure cancer every day, our existence is a net positive on the world. My girlfriend is beautiful but she doesn't live in New York City and with the exception of one crazy evening on the roof of the Gansevoort Hotel, we don't spend a lot of time in the Meatpacking district. I do, however, have six-pack abs. That's not true.

Do you feel like you've always been you? I do. Inside this twenty-eight year old body, I'm the exact same guy now that I was when I was six. I can see myself standing at the bottom of the slide on the playground having the same thought then that I'm having now: boobs. Does this make me a time-traveler? If you can so clearly see your present-self in the past, saying the same words, making the same decisions and taking the same actions, you are existing in two places at once. You're a time traveler, too! (you're welcome.)

There are a lot of times that I feel like a little kid. For example, when I think about my parents' eventual death, it derails whatever activity I set out to do. I need them - I'm still just a little boy. When I was a little boy, though, there were plenty of times that I felt like a adult. Like the time me and my three best friends set out to find a dead body in the woods.

My thoughts used to cycle: where am I, where did I want to be, where did I think I'd be. But then I realized that for the last thirty years, I've seen the same face in the mirror: brown hair, green eyes, beard. I think I had a beard when I was six. I could be wrong. I've always thought about the past, present and future. The possibilities. And if I am in two places at once, then that means I am forty looking back at twenty eight. Look how young I am! At this point, my brain goes supernova. I furiously scribble everything I want to do before I die. Ride a motorcycle from Maine to California. Learn twelve languages. Get paid to write something. Sing good.

There is only one thing missing from my life: a plan. As soon as I latch on to a plan of attack, I'll execute the hell out of it. All I can say is watch out, world. My name is Jake and I'm coming to mess up your shit. After all, I'm just a swank playboy Kevin James little kid on the playground and I can do anything.