It seems to me that I will never get to college before I'm 30? 25? Something like that. It's this, un-attainable dream that is quickly becoming shredded into limp, pale, wan tatters that tremble lifelessly in the cold wind of my mind. They were once vibrant- Maybe they've never been vibrant?
I've always known my parents wouldn't give me any assistance for my college education. They just can't. There's no fund saved up, there's no tiny thousand dollars stashed away for me and my college. It's just me. And my penny jar-which is empty, by the way-to forge the path to higher education.
I want it, however badly, it seems I don't want it badly enough to get a crappy job that pays jack-squat, save it all up, pursue a million scholarships and grants and put myself through. On my own. It just seems to, stupid? I must be too old? There's something there that hinders me. Something that binds me back into my cell-which I built myself- and locks me securely in.
I am twenty two. I feel too old to go to college. I feel to old to do anything teenagers are supposed to do after high school. Namely, go to college. You start at eighteen, finish at, twenty-one or twenty two. I should be done with college. I should be doing some crappy job that has nothing to do with what I studied and have a fucking college education. Yet, would I be happy then? Would the fact that I have a piece of paper that attests to my gain of a higher education make me happy?
I would be considered normal. I've never been considered normal. Perhaps that is what, beneath layers of human emotion and past, I truly want. To fit into the vast expanse of humanity and be another human. Not forever, but just for a little while. To be normal.
What is normal? The norm? It's going to school, to get a good education to get a job that will, in the end, kill you. That's normal. It's being tall and skinny with no glasses, perfect teeth, superficial friends, parents that have college savings for you, give you your first car, and straight blonde or brown hair. That's normal.
And it goes against everything that I am.
I am not normal, and for some strange reason, I cannot fully live with that. There's something-a lack of recognition-that leaves me uneasy in my day to day life. I have curly hair, glasses, I'm not particularly tall, in fact, I might be called short. I'm strong, a little stocky, and I have a passion for art. I'm not model gorgeous, but I'm not, by any means ugly. I'm pretty. A certain kind of pretty for a certain kind of guy that I will meet someday before I'm old and decrepit.
And because of this ab-normality. This lack of normality, normal-ness, I'm torn, destroyed, shredded, and believe I will never go to college.
My one priority now is to, (in these steps) get a job, to pay for car insurance, to get my driver's license, to get an apartment away from my house. To live on my own. Doing what? I don't know yet. This is another fantasy that is being slaughtered by reality. In the fantasy there's a cosy urban apartment (think Across The Universe) where I can paint the walls and have a cat. I work in the morning at a coffee shop. I have a fabulous rapport with the regulars, perhaps a couple of tattoos, purple hair, and a funky wardrobe. Then I go home for late lunch, maybe do a little crafting to support my Etsy business, and then it's off to the theatre for rehearsal, performance, artsy ness. That's my fantasy. Oh yeah, and I have a black ( or gunmetal grey) Volkswagen Golf that I drive around in. Maybe with the cat, whose name is Bunky. The black cat. That' giant one who looks a little fearsome as he soaks up the afternoon sunlight on the windowsill? That's Cicero. Or Lord Byron. Or maybe even Chaucer, but he'd have to be quite remarkable.
That's my dream. And here I shall leave it, for I can't bear to dip back into reality right now, the dream is too lovely, too sunny where reality is not. I'm going to soak up the sun. Just for little while.
