A House Plant, Kelsea Ballerini, and Sticking with the Good

Turning Thirty

Yep. I’m old. I’m ye olden Blender user. *thins my lips like an old man* “Back in 2.49, we didn’t have a dark mode.”

It’s definitely one of those birthdays that feels different. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, yeah whatever. I can still be a “cool kid” (which was promptly debunked as soon as I sat down with early 20’s Blender-ers at BCON LA last year).

But thirty … feels different. Things can still stay the same right? Right?

A Plant Funeral

When I got married and moved to Georgia, we bought a plant. Cliche, I know. But it gave us something to do and take care of. Low maintenance.

It was weirdly resilient. We moved several times. Multiple apartments in Georgia, and even in a moving truck across the country to Utah. Survived a couple winters inside our Utah apartment.

How? We have no idea.

Until this month. Baby became a toddler, and we moved into a house. Toddlers will go after anything at eye level (and even above eye level), and our plant is no exception. We figured it could go outside, get more sun anyway.

The dry weather didn’t do it favors, but with a few regular drinks of water, it survived.

Then the Utah cold got to it. One morning, it just drooped. Permanently. Must’ve gotten below freezing one night, and it just couldn’t handle it.

We gave it more water, put it in the garage to warm it up outside the toddler’s view. But part of me knew it was too far gone. So we gave it a proper eulogy over the trash can.

Didn’t expect to get emotional over a plant, but here we are.

How about a fully inanimate object?

“What happened to the fan?” “It died.”

Right before my debut of “Default Cube: The Game”, my desktop tower’s graphics card started sounding strange. I took it to Best Buy, who confirmed the fan was barely holding on. It needed to be replaced.

They recommended just buying an entirely new graphics card. The whole PC was only a few years old, even then I was unsure. But after some convincing by helpful people on the Fediverse, I bought a replacement fan shipped from China.

And waited. For nine days.

It was frustrating. Why wait? Why not just buy the gaming PC at Best Buy, ready to go, literally sitting there all day? Why pay $25 for a week of unproductive time instead?

But the fan finally arrived. As soon as I got it, I sat down in my office and spent over an hour fixing it. Disassembled, replaced, reassembled.

And in a moment of truth, it booted. Boot screen. Then the login screen. My login screen.

I broke down. Surprised I didn’t cry, to be honest.

We’re so attached to our devices. And even then, I nearly abandoned 100% of my computer for 10% of problems. I admit; it was ridiculous of me to think like that. To be so unforgiving for fixable, replaceable stuff.

As every artist and programmer has asked themselves, after going down a rabbit hole of investment in a project: what’s worth fixing, instead of just moving on?

What is worth quitting on?

Kelsea Ballerini

So how does she play a part in all of this? No, I haven’t met her personally. She did open for a Kelly Clarkson concert I was at, but that’s another story.

Well, she released a new song this past week:

If for some reason the link doesn’t work (or you just don’t want to listen to it — first of all, how dare you), she sings about living the life of a showgirl (which also dropped recently, but we’re not talking about that) while wishing for the life of a, well, wife and mother:

For context, she was married, got divorced, and dating someone now. So it’s not from a lack of trying, really. But it poses interesting thoughts.

The Yearbook Effect

I remember feeling so cool coining “the yearbook effect” as a kid (not famously, just to myself). Girls with straight hair would curl it for pictures. Curly-haired girls would straighten it for the big day. Neither changed it permanently, but both still wanted to be remembered for something they didn’t have.

This back-and-forth with our wants and what we have. How we use our choices and what’s given to us. And continuing to choose leads to investment.

Our brains give us little choice but to be invested in ourselves. It’s survival, really.

With other living beings, we get invested either from our own choices or emotional attachment from being together. Death, separation, or bad choices (our own or others) can all strain that. Non-living things are not that much different.

Kelsea vocally wonders if she invested in the wrong lifestyle. I (thankfully) invested in the right fan instead of a new graphics card, let alone a new PC. Investing in the companionship of a plant gave us unexpected grief.

Investment and longing. A common struggle among us human beings. When to invest in something or someone. “What if I invest in the wrong one?”

As someone currently living the family life, I worried a lot about “losing” everything I had before a family. Time. Artistic endeavors. Freedom. So on and so forth. I’m sure some worry the same thing.

In my experience - yes, you do lose a lot. You miss out on things.

But I chose to invest in it. So far, it’s worth it. More fulfilling than anything else I’ve done.

I think we all get FOMO (fear of missing out, for future historians). Sometimes it’s just the fear of lost freedom. It’s safer to keep all choices “open” instead of actually choosing one. Why fight for freedom if you keep limiting it with your choices?

Okay, now I’m just being facetious.

But as Kelsea put it, life makes choices with or without your consent. Your biological clock. Electronics failing. Seasons. Missed opportunities.

But there is no life where you can take every opportunity without losing other ones.

So choose to invest. Sometimes that means letting go of what you have for something you hope to be better. Sometimes that means holding onto what you already chose. Sometimes it means holding onto what life gives you.

So I’ll hold on to being thirty, optimistic for the life I’ve invested in.