It’s 3:58 a.m.
I sit at the corner of the edge of my bed twisting my hair that falls on my face into tiny locks. Switching from laying on my stomach, lying upside down, sitting straight up, lounging on my side.
The cool breeze has set into motion in Alamosa, the nights are chilly and my comforter provides some heat. I keep rubbing my feet back and forth in order to warm them up.I haven’t muttered a word for over nine insomniac hours, my mom called in to check to see if everything was all right since I didn’t text her back this morning. “Yeah, Mom everything’s alright, I’m just tired of wondering if I’m really meant to be living this life just to pay off college debt, get a 9-5, plan on a 401K with health benefits, get a husband and family, adopt a rescue dog for a family pet, and go to PTA meetings. It sounds like any normal persons dream, but why does it piss me off that that might be my future.”
I’ve spent my whole entire life, to date, in school, studying, testing, binge drinking, drug questioning, sexual experimenting, and realizing living in Alamosa during the winter seasons without a heating blanket is somewhat committing suicide.
I’ve experienced all that was meant for me to experience in college, usually when you hit that peak you graduate to dress slacks and formal resume cover letters.
Trade in dirty chucks for black standard dress shoes, learn to tie a tie correctly, and realize the messenger bag you’ve had since freshman year has to retire and a brief case is the new lady in your life.
Lost in my own train of thought with the fear of having to part ways with my precious chucks that have finally molded to my feet correctly, I realize one thing – I don’t want a job that requires me in a uniform, I don’t want to work set hours, I don’t want to have my retirement plan already in motion, I don’t want a house with a white picket fence and a beagle playing in the front yard with my 2 kids and a commercialized husband tossing the old pig skin around. I want to be free.
Listening to the sound of the clock on my wall slowly ticking away in the same set pace reminds me of what society wants us to be. Go to school, graduate, get a job, have a family, retire, die. Doesn’t that scare the shit out of you? Knowing that we all can’t be like Jay-z, we can’t hoop like Jordan, Paint like Picasso, Model like Tyra, and be president like Obama.
I’m not setting my standards low, I’m just tuning them to be realistic – but I want to do something epic with my life. I want to go to a country that I won’t be able to understand, eat foods that I won’t ever be able to pronounce, fall in love with every man I share my world with, be completely lost in a foreign country, watch the sunset/sunrise on a different coast every five years, back pack through Asia, pick up a job just to pay for my travels, and immerse myself in the utter chaos of life.
If I don’t get married, if I don’t have kids, if my mom will never be able to become a grandmother, if I’ll never have that front yard for the beagle, I will be okay. I don’t want it. I don’t want to believe that is why I was created. I refuse. This can’t be all that life has planned for me, not to be a drone in line waiting for my number to be called; I’m stepping out of line – catching a cab – and looking up plane tickets costs. I will rebel, I will be selfish, I will never have a 401K.
So I continue to sit here on my bed, looking at my chucks, changing positions, pulling my hair back from my neck, typing a reminder to myself…
Don’t mail out those resumes, run… pack your bags and just run…
P.S. -Thank you SO much for all the wonderful responses to last week’s column. There’s a spot in my heart just for you.
What’s Been Said…