I don’t wan’a grow up

Posted by: Marisa on: March 2, 2010

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Looking for a little inspiration.

Many young people with a direction for bigger and better believing in a world without limitations, head to the sweetest land of opportunity, The Big Apple.  All of a sudden after struggling to actualize your dreams or fight against a cascade of cookie cutter drone like jobs.   You wake up 7 years later realizing you turn twenty-nine in fourteen days, living in Harlem’s Sugar Hill (most known at the moment for the guy who got shot outside your stoop because of an argument at a local deli) praying that your temp agency will call with some nice entry-level job where their internet security hasn’t yet cut off FB. I am in such a position. 

There are so many things I was told I was destined for and hope I might still be, but there is this gnawing anguish of heightening self-disappointment that is both comical and so self-pitying that at times I want to crawl up in a sphere and dissolve like a little Lush bath ball.  That very act however is just so self-pitying that I couldn’t empathize with myself. 

You may have dreamt that by this time you would be at your mansion by the pool with Oompa-Loompas serving Firefly ice-tea out of the Stanley Cup (this might just be me). Jostled from reverie into reality, realize we can’t afford the life we dreamt, in fact the life we dreamt never involved paying student loans, staying with a job for health insurance, finding out 401K isn’t the arch nemesis of 007. 

We realize that most of us will never achieve that dream, so we start deciding what we can afford to dream about. We had these grandiose life markers in our teens and college years that dictated “by the time I” turn thirty, which was so-so-so old when we pounded down red cup after red cup of mystery mix.  Our accomplishments: having that perfect someone, indulging in an amazing million dollar career, owning a townhouse on the Upper West Side, living very comfortably. As I stare down the barrel of 29 with 30 a hair trigger away, I realize that sadly, foolishly, or valiantly, I haven’t given up my dream. 

So how do I break from the feeling that I need to know what I’m doing for the rest of my life, erase this dread of disappointing my loved ones, or stop staring at the wall wondering if that spot is a critter or simply a spot gone unnoticed (that moves on occasion)…I give it unto you. I will have you hold me accountable for my accomplishments or lack there of, by simply putting out…my thoughts, not my body (hopefully it won’t come to that). Hopefully you will find yourself laughing, understanding or sharing in my struggle because you are getting ready or know what it’s like to turn twenty-nine in fourteen days. 

This past week I yelled at a guy while wearing nothing but my bathrobe and anger as he unjustly almost shut off my power, frightened a fellow brethren of the Pacific (who TimeWarner was kind enough to outsource a job to) because of the $26 monthly charge for premium channels that the company “accidentally” put on my bill, and scolded my dad for not drinking enough water, the straw I grasped when I learned he was unusually sick and going to the hospital for tests. 

As the clock has turned pass midnight, I turn twenty-nine in now less than fourteen days.  Let the good times begin…