Is anyone else feeling like adulthood is an anticlimax? You suppose and hypothesize and conceptualize and prepare and way-find, and when you've finally made it, when you've completed, at last, the herculean trek from whining to wining, all you've got to show for it is a paycheck and a stand mixer. I mean, seriously?
Yesterday, after tea, a quick run, and 500 words of the latest writing project, I got to work. I drove from one side of the city to the other, tackled a small child escaping through the hole in grandma's fence, played endless games of ready-set-go, squealed when another kiddo at long last imitated a car horn, and filled out paperwork. I stopped into Target, exchanged a poorly-fitting shirt for some sparkling water and $8. I went home, wrote some program notes, answered some emails, practiced, and did an hour of disgruntled yoga. My obligations discharged, I attended a friend's 15-minute Taiko drumming performance, hit up the neighborhood gumbo truck, and watched Burn After Reading.
It's not that it was a bad day. It was, all in all, a pretty fair day. I worked half a day at each of my jobs, earned some $, put in some time on my hobby, exercised, ran errands, and recreated. It's more that this day looks pretty dang similar to the day before, the day after, and the day after that.
I miss anticipation. I miss living with the understanding that you're moving toward something, that you're a breath away, that you're crescendoing. I miss the tremulous possible, the feeling that, if you set your ear to the skin of now, you can hear tomorrow's heart's tattoo.
Seventh-Day Adventism never looked so good.
3 comments:
When most people get to this point in their life, they have babies. When you are a parent, there is always a sense of growing and moving forward.... birth, potty training, first day of school.
Oh, anonymous beat me to it. It's sort of delayed gratification, but yeah, that's how it feels these days. You know, mixed in with the abject terror, and all.
Or you could just say you're having your mid-life crisis early and buy a sports car and spend the rest of your life finding a way to pay it off!
Or, substitute the sports car for something meaningful to you; find a lifelong goal to work toward, either professionally or personally, or both!
But, as trite as it sounds, you are in charge of your own destiny, and if you want that anticipation, that possibility, then you have to make it for yourself..
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