~ i feel old ~

10 October 2002

transferred from LJ:

i feel old lately.

i check if i have wrinkles around my eyes. i even applied eye cream today before leaving for work.

i take pictures of me over and over again and never satisfied on how i looked cause i feel like i took much better pictures a few years ago.

i looked through the lines around my mouth, thinking that i should smile less often cause ultimately it’ll ruin my face.

yesterday, i looked through many many journals here at livejournal, looking for photos of people. most of them are so young and fresh. most of them are still teenager. and i’m 27 going 28.

the changes around me here in New York City doesn’t help either. i just found out today that hafeez is looking for someone to rent his apartment. i was surprised. so i asked liz, where is he going? she didn’t seem to want to tell me. i guess it’s a secret. i guess he’s also leaving Bolt.

everyone is leaving. either bolt or new york in general. scogin has to leave his apartment at the end of this month. i heard jane may leave the city and move to the west coast all together by next year. now hafeez.

a few years ago, i was still fresh out of school and jumped full-throttle into the internet industry. it was my first job and i thought, wow, my dad is wrong! working is fun! we would go to bars almost every weeknights and get wasted together with our CEO and those so-called higher ups (well, higher-ups in the web industry isn’t much higher than you are. or at least doesn’t seem so a few years ago). those alcohol was subsidised by the office too!

everyone looks cool. not pretty, not handsome, but cool. bear with me here, but at that time, being able to go to work with pink hair, shorts and tshirts would be considered as dream job. it was my dream job. i had my hair blue at some point. i would wear the weirdest clothing, because everyone else in the building was weird. guys with skateboards were common. having ravers as co-workers who came to work along with their pecifier and glowstick was awesome.weird in a cool way, i think. it’s like… it’s ok to dress and act like highschooler when you’re nearing 30s. i wasn’t nearing 30’s. i was just passed my teenage years. but my friends are.

don’t get me wrong. even if those people dress and act like highschoolers, they work very very hard. staying until midnight or 2 in the morning is a common thing.heck, people are staying over in the office. they love it so much, they don’t want to leave. we had futon there, for goodness sake.

we loved the idea of working in this environment. it’s a dream come true. we loved our dreams and would try very hard to hang on to it. even when the bubble bursted.

yep, it came. 2000 is a bad year. internet stuff was proven to be one of those high hopes full of dissapointments. investors no longer as gullible as they were used to. money became tight, thus we need to work even harder than we already did. i remember what my CEO said: triple your working hours, kids! when we already work minimum of 12 hours a day, there is not enough hours in one day to triple our working hours… we still tried for a few months…

but when the dot com bubble bursted, so did the dreams. there is nothing to hold the passion anymore.

we’re exhausted, tired and running out of hope that the golden year of 1999 would come back. CEO demands more effort and got frustrated. the workers also got frustrated since the promised shares have tanked and is worthless.

what are we doing? why do we have to milk ourselves for nothing in return? faith no more. non-existent future. what are we doing here?

people started to go home during the regular hours… around 5 or 6. we work only for paychecks. just like any other job in this world.

work is work
fun is gone.

so, people leave one by one. there used to be so many young people in New York City. young rich kids, drunk and happy in bars. well, i think the population of those people are decreasing. they either less happy or less rich. they might still be drunk. in agony.

i feel this weird feeling in my chest. i think it’s sadness. those days are over. i feel like i have to grow up. or maybe realize that i’m a grown up. i can’t cover myself in unnatural hair color and funky clothes to run away from being adult. at some point, we have to move on. and i think this is my time.

i feel old.