A LOST YEAR

For nearly the whole year I was 22, I lived in Waltham, Massachusetts.
I had high hopes and my first real job, and I thought living within
pissing distance of a major city like Boston was going to be the cat's ass.

I couldn't adjust. I had just finished college, where I spent all of
my academic time photographing and printing, elbow deep in work
that satisfied me and that I held dear. My new office job didn't agree
with me, and I didn't know anyone. More importantly, I hated the landscape.
The aesthetics of eastern Massachusetts offended me deeply, and I took it personally.
I was so bored after work that I would just go for long walks, and the
physical world I found myself moving through was so devoid of character
and soul that it made me angry. 

My memories of this time are few. I hardly ever took the train into Boston.
I watched a lot of television for the first time in my life, and I walked a lot.
The dull, grey whine of apathy was punctuated by anger, a toxic relationship,
and a strange, cold winter spent in a rented attic. I shot digital photos a
few times, but those files have mercifully been lost. 

I shot a few rolls with a Rolleiflex. I eventually moved back to Worcester,
renting an apartment on the top floor of my photography professor's house.
I spent a few late, hot summer nights after work developing the film
in his darkroom, with a couple beers and his Tom Waits CDs,
and I filed them away, unwilling to throw them out, unwilling to think about the past year,
sure that I had only wasted film and time. I got on with my life as quickly as I could.

I forgot about the negatives until recently. It all seems like such trivial bullshit now.
I am proud of the work that I did during that year, all else aside. Stay true.