Filed under: self indulgence
I was ashamed of my lack of accomplishment for a long while. I was afraid that I had turned into a tall, empty vessel shaped like wasted IQ points. Or like a baby Great White flopping on the bow of some other vessel in some other simile.
Boston has what I have been looking for. I’ve been full of shame since I was 16. Ashamed of a miserable home life that wasn’t of my choosing, ashamed that I drifted away from AP classes and a BS at 22 like everyone else, ashamed of failed relationships and failed escape attempts. Now I’m here, in this city, where everyone has jumped from degree to career, or degree to degree, and they’re no happier than I. Heads down, push through, bite, snarl, succeed. At the end of the trial is a heap of cash, financial stability, a wife, 1.23 kids, a front lawn in a suburb that they’ll pay some Mexican man to mow for them because they’re at work from 8am til its too dark to lay on the lawn and catch fire flies with the 1.23 who will repeat the cycle.
I’ve found two very important things here. The desire to go on with school (not to run away to Antarctica on a expedition) and validation of my suspicion that it is worth waiting to know what you want out of life rather than plowing through the flaming hoops, expecting something valuable on the other end. I need to know that I am choosing my future and not simply conforming to the expectations of my high school teachers, aunt and uncle, friends, lovers, and bosses.
I am thankful for the turns of my life. I’m thankful that my mother taught me resilience in her own way, that I have known the love of many fine individuals I still call friends, that I have rolled in the mud, and that I have earned the regard of those I respect. I don’t know that, had I not followed this route, I would have equal regard for a nap in the sun and the grasp of a concept. Too few sensualists need to understand; too few intellectuals need to feel.
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