Finishing school, I'm left trying to hold onto everything I believe in. Love - love is found in the darkness, from the sweat of bodies in between sleep and wake. My job would be without sacrifice - no extra long hours unless I wanted to and I would love every minute of it. I'd get married eventually but before I was forty so I didn't have to worry about having Down Syndrome babies and in the end I'll have lived a full life and I will die.
Now. Now that I'm here (wherever that is), I don't know where I stand. Finishing school with the dreaded Arts diploma and the thought "an actor, no...musician? actor? lawyer? God, I gotta choose something" What will it be? Which is the right one? Have I wasted my whole life for this?
The choices that I make in this vacuum I call the 'After School Void,' or ASV for short, may be important ones in my life. Right now they feel like the most important. I'm getting old - don't laugh. I may be 24, but it feels like a millennium has past since I left high school, that place where I knew what I wanted.
Now I feel further away from a focus then I've ever had up to this point. It's like I woke up one morning and didn't know if the path I was on was one that I wanted to be on. Have I just convinced myself to be here because I thought it was good for me? Or that I'd show Mrs. Funk my forth grade teacher that I was worth something? Or did I merely convince myself that this was my only happiness?
Taking a step back, I stand on a ledge scrambling to stay balanced, not wanting to fall. What is out there beyond my limitations? What is the point of even asking these questions?
Well elementary my dear Watson - if I'm going to stick to something, it might as well be cliche. I would say that 80% of the people I know who are finishing their higher education have suddenly started to question their choices. The other 20% just don't realize it yet. So why shouldn't I have questions? It's only natural. Yet in the same breath I feel like it's wrong. Years of societal brainwashing at it's best. Let's take a look at an example, shall we?
There's this guy. Let's call him Billy. Like Billy the Kid. So Billy the Kid has been fighting tooth and nail to stay at the top of his class. He will be the next social-economic giant. Keep on polishin' that glass ceiling cause this kid is burstin' right through. Six months left till the end, at that point where you can taste success coming, and the kid doesn't want to be called William. What? But that's your name. That's what you become. Billy becomes William, you get a diploma, and you get a real job. There will be responsibility, there will be only 2 weeks of vacation per year, there will be mistakes, there will be triumphs, there will be sadness, there will be an end...if Billy lets it. Of course he could make another choice. And live out a different deck of cards.
It all boils down to security and freedom. How important are they? What do they ultimately mean to you? Justice and happiness are nice thoughts but, well, look at the world right now with its terrorist threats and anthrax fears. Everything is about security and freedom. Who's taking it, how we get more, why aren't we doing more about it. Fair enough. It just goes to show you where our priorities lie.
Now seriously, if you are reading this and thinking, 'What is that bitch talkin' about, she don't know me!' Great...if you can honestly look into your soul and look at every choice that you've made and still say that - that you have never based anything on your own needs for security or freedom - then I'm happy for you.
I can't honestly say that about myself. Security and freedom influence me. I wish I could be the idolized Mother Theresa - well at least what people say she is. Gives up everything she has to help others (yes folks, that would mean security and freedom are bye-bye for most of you) and with that she has happiness and justice - or at least gives it.
Sacrifice is only sacrifice when you want what you’re letting go of. And though our dreams focus on what'll give us our own sense of freedom coupled with the security we crave, that does not nessesarily equal happiness. At least not for everyone, I hope.
So what is happiness? I don't have a clue. All I know is that if I keep searching for the right thing and the happy moment and where I need to be, then I will never find it. I will end up doing the same thing everyday until the day I die. So instead, I will try something new everyday. Even if that means not trying the same beer twice then hooray!
I will start to know the things that I might not like and the things that I never knew I liked. And I will try things again and maybe I'll like things that I didn't before and hate the ones I love. I will live my life as water and change as the earth does and not worry about getting it right or having my life planned for me. As for the Kid? Maybe he can just be Billy and see what happens. That's what I'm going to do.
