an epiphany on the end of youth
this is an otherwise ordinary sunday morning. i already made breakfast, drank my coffee and have been watching “Weeds” for about an hour.
i’m actually rewatching it from the first season, and so i just recently watched the episode where all of the pseudo-punk kids of Agrestic are gathered in an abandoned house, drinking shitty beer and smoking cigarettes and not getting blow-jobs from the deaf girl on Dewey Street. i realized, in watching that scene, that i have never lived that life.
i was one of those kids who was forced to stay home a lot in high school. i was a (relatively) good kid, got (relatively) good grades in school…and this was probably secured by the fact that my mother didn’t really let me go anywhere until i was 18, at which point i was a sophomore in college.
but now, as i’m about to turn 23, i look back on it all, and wonder if maybe it wasn’t all for the best. most of my peer group that did spend a lot of time being retarded during adolescence are still, even now, lost amongst the fray. the crop of millennials who graduated high school between 2002 and 2007 are futilely searching for steady jobs and/or careers in a shit-and-biscuits economy, a stabilizing and consistent culture to embrace, a niche in a discombobulated nation.
oddly enough, despite the black hole of a personal life that i’m living through, i’m pretty personally satisfied. my degree program gets more interesting as each week or so goes by, i keep meeting intelligent and driven people who challenge me to work hard(er), and i live in a place that’s great for cycling.
i feel less untethered than my fellows. i have passion, drive, and a desire to do something, to have a purpose. that’s pretty pretty good, for twenty-two.