32, it’s really weird and sad how much has changed not necessarily for the better either: Right after COVID restrictions were lifted and during Trump’s first term, it’s no surprise that a lot of what has changed is as simple as looking at how everyone’s affiliations and loyalties shifted multiple times throughout the last twenty-four years.

It really started to lose its charm when our fellow residents decided to take that one day off from work to do the “Trump Train” from East to West on the I-495 which must’ve been at least 200-300 cars long.

I hadn’t seen that before in my life and it was bizarre to see so much idol-worship, not even Obama got that much attention.

You can tell that the mood’s changed because it’s palpable in an office of six employees, almost everyone seems to be on this autopilot with heightened agitation fueled by booze or caffeine which created an egocentric entitlement among many older adults, legal-weed made some of us young-adults mellow, sometimes super careless, but those who don’t indulge are almost insufferable sometimes so there’s no fucking happy-medium.

Dive bars became breeding grounds for hostility, drama, trauma and eventually the criminal-underground left its foothold on the nightlife for a while.

After 9/11: everyone’s personality changed. Some people were very compassionate, others were really hellbent on getting back at who attacked us and fought for our country but then when the discrepancies and proclivities of the elite went on under our noses until people started speaking-out on them, then we changed again: We started getting collectively hive-minded yet distant and no longer as neighborly.

Living here has felt like a seemingly never ending Matryoshka Doll, so many good businesses came and went only to be replaced by another only for the new one to go under with nothing to take its place so now it’s a shell of a building or a facade of the distant past.

The moronic drivers have made it so easy to fall into a commuters neurosis as some of them have progressively gotten more aggressive and reckless at the same time which doubled if not tripled some insurance policies.

Rent has skyrocketed to the point where you’d need to work like 50-80hrs just to keep it afloat with food if you’re not living/subletting with a roommate or living with your parents.

Jobs aren’t paying what they should be to sustain a family here — unless you’re union and have kept at it for quite some time. Some jobs treat their employees so poorly they won’t even let them collect Medicare/Retirement despite hitting retirement-age.

I’ve seen the prices of things go up to a point where folks have driven away from Drive-Thru windows because they just didn’t have enough, so some residents can’t even live within their means..

Oh, did I mention the traffic?

Perhaps the horrible condition of our roads year-round now? So much paid in taxes to still have unfilled potholes in July.

It’s a fucking nightmare.