A few hours ago I had an interestingly upsetting revelation. As I cursed the heat and my kid fears and low bank account, I looked around my apartment with its tumbleweed dust bunnies mocking the Swiffer I had yet to wield, at the costume pieces and scripts that have littered my dining room table for two months, at the fridge stocked with a lone Victory beer and some locatelli--and felt like I was going to actually. lose. my. shit.
Because I think sometimes I have been losing said shit for going on five years now, and then it occurred to me that while pretty much everyone else I know spent their twenties being twenty-something, I did not. I thought how at 25 I was running a pretty sweet household where there was dinner cooked every night and things were fairly neat and clean and orderly, I took care of my mans and my dog the best I could. I waitressed and I temped and I wrote and I acted. I was poor but I was still pretty responsible--had no debt save student loans--and while I was in a low-rent situation and had the support of a partner, we were still way too young to play house like that. But it's what we did and we did it pretty well, all things considered, and we were the only people we knew who were that kind of grown up. I don't think I regret it. I do regret where it ended up, in tears and recriminations and very, very little to show for all the joy and pain, sunshine and rain.
I thought how it wasn't the plan, to buy a house and be quite so......mature. I wanted a one-bedroom apartment that was close to the bar and would be decorated with hits and misses, arguments and kisses. I wanted to pay too much for a tiny space, and hit up the laundromat, and drink wine in bed. I wanted to be in my early twenties, and happy with my boyfriend, and starting out. Instead I got pushed into a common law marriage I never wanted to be in. I fought against being in it. But the practicality of being committed at such a tender age (lower rent! more stuff! washer and dryer! getting a dog!) won the day, so off we went into domestic unbliss, and there we stayed for many years.
In the meantime, the rest of my friends lived at home and saved up money, or went to Europe, or went back to school. Had sweet little studios like the one I gave up for love. They went to grad school. They got entry-level jobs and got promoted and started making money. They went to New York and LA and Chicago and San Fran. They had one-night stands and short-term parking and slowly but surely began to settle into being adult, if that is what is meant by having big expensive weddings and bigger pricier divorces and babies and houses and cars. They switched careers and found themselves in the maddening crowd. They found happiness and lost it and found it again, seemingly picking up again from where they left off.
Me in my twenties, I kept on acting, kept on working, tried to be a good live-in girlfriend and thought a lot in the back of my mind whether or not I wanted to keep on growing up with this guy I met when I was barely 21 and only looking for fun. I knew that this life worked well for me. It embraced my inherent loyalties, it was a safe haven for the uncertainty of a career in theater, the price was low, the sex was good, the love was most definitely there.
Until suddenly and without any great neon flashing signs of warning, it wasn't.
And so I thought long and hard about what to do, clinically reviewed what I had, let myself feel crazy emotions I had never once allowed enter my conscious self, and decided I would fight to not escape even though the exit signs were clearly lit. I stayed, and I tried, and I spent money I had no business spending on making this relationship, the most consistent thing I had ever had in my life, work. The gambit failed and in the end, even though I still had a full drink, the lights came on and I didn't have to go home but I couldn't stay there.
So I went, and stood not upon the order of my going. I tried again to be smart about my choices, to work out what would be best right then for my heart and my head. I turned down a full scholarship to grad school because practically I couldn't afford to live and attend school full time, and because mentally I was barely capable of getting up in the morning let alone throwing myself body and soul into the study of my art. I did what I had to do, I chose my choice, and I spent the next year plus lying in a pile of my own emotional vomit.
And I cleaned up my act, once more with feeling. I did new things and rediscovered old things and while my life was not better nor worse than it had ever been it was different. Battle-scarred but alive. And so it goes. I savored being alive. I still do.
But in the process I now find myself once again at a crossroads. Only this time I don't see two paths laid clearly out for me. Less road less travelled than stopping by the woods on a snowy evening. And I marvel at how much I used to accomplish this time a decade ago compared to how little I am able to manage now. I am eking out an existence that doesn't not work for me, but it is nowhere near enough. I am ignoring things that will not be ignored. I am tired and poor and a huddled mass, yearning to be free. And it occurs to me that I am not that old but am far too old to be such a wanker about how I live. But I haven't the foggiest notion of how to make any of it better. I can't even bring myself to plug in the vacuum.
I am sick of rules. I am sick of having settle for second best. I am sick of knowing myself like crazy while still always leaving room for improvement and knowledge and discovery and power and yet still find myself stuck in an eddy of my own frustration. I worry a lot--that I am moving backward, not forward. That while everyone else was figuring it out, I thought without even realizing what I was getting into that I had it figured out enough--and now I can't imagine what it was all for. That is what is disturbing me. I am too rational at heart to not look for reasons and patterns and room for improvement. But right this second, it is like I audited life classes for over a decade and graduated with no degree. I worked since I was 12 and have nothing saved up for a rainy day like today. I have nothing to show and tell right now. I know this attitude is incredibly immature and silly. I know it is past time to get back in the saddle again and just ride--but I know I never really got off the horse. I am just motion-sick of riding toward no destination.
Self-absorbed nonsense. I know that everyone is plagued by self-doubt and worry. We all have good days and bad days. There are far worse problems than mine. Blah blah blah. My whole being is screaming at me about exactly which path I should choose right now, but I cannot seem to set foot on it. Is it a matter of not being able to take responsibility for myself? I truly don't think it is. But I feel like 90% of the time I am doing what I have to do and not what I want to do--to the point where I do not even know what it is I want to do anymore, so daunting is it to push this stone up the mountain again and again and no one is waiting at the top for more than a few hours.
Show me the way, indeed.
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