I watched Glee today. The last time I felt this embarrassedly ashamed for enjoying a TV program I was in high school, in the closet, and in my living room watching the tent scene from Brokeback Mountain with the volume down impossibly low and my father in the other room (I'm not saying Glee gave me a boner, but I felt as guilty as a priest on a playground for enjoying it). I watched those teenagers spin, sing, drink, dance, make-out, and fall apart, loving and hating every minute of it at the same time. It made memories of my own flash past; and as I pondered the hormones, the alcohol, and the drug experimentation that so intoxicated my teen years, retrospect took the term 'higher' education to a whole new level.
The years of adolescence (roughly age 12-21) were possibly the most miserable of my life. The kids were cruel, the cliques were absolute and I, like most kids, was impossibly lost in the mess. My teachers were assholes, my family was worse, I only had a few close friends, and even the most inconsequential social situation made me feel butt-ass naked. At parties I would drift to the corners, force small talk, and drink 'til I knew no pain. At no other point in my life have I ever been more lonely.
And I miss it.
The cloudy judgement, the benefit of the doubt, the naivety, rolling the dice with no idea how the game would play out (or even how to play the game, really) made me feel incredibly alive. I detested all the confusion but at least uncertainty leaves room for hope. Adolescence was exciting. Adolescence was full of possibility. Even if I wasn't sure who I was, I could be anything I wanted. As sure I knew today was miserable, I was equally certain that it was temporary; the life I wanted was undoubtedly right up the road, just around the next bend.
A few wrong turns later, I don't have that same optimism anymore. Hard knocks and heartaches have left me disillusioned; the wizening of years are raising concerns that maybe where I'm heading is not the place I dreamed but, instead, somewhere un-exciting, somewhere un-fun, somewhere more content but less happy, over the rainbow but completely black and white. I'm genuinely terrified that I finally understand the road I'm on and as I understand it: this road leads nowhere. Somewhere along the line I may have accidentally purchased a non-refundable, one-way ticket to burden, responsibility, and restraint and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I don't want to grow up anymore. I reject it. I refuse.
I don't envy those Disney Channel stars like I did yesterday. Those kids are gonna skip high school, forego college, and grow up so fast that they'll miss out on that awful, beautiful, painful, longing period of starry-eyed, once in a lifetime optimism. It's all over for them; their lives will be boring and predictable. Why do you think so many child stars fall into drug dependency and suicide? These are people who reach their destination prematurely, have zero recollection of how they got there, and desperately, desperately, desperately want to find a way back. They want a do-over. Don't we all?
Kids are wanderers, adults are settlers, and we wonder why people pine for youth. So, where do I go from here? Grow up? Revert? Find myself? Lose myself? I want a life of fun, mystery and excitement that still has control, security and stability; is that being unrealistic? I've met children with old souls and adults with youthful spirits but nobody who has it all and nobody who could give me an answer. What I want is either complex simplicity or simplistic complexity, but I actually have no idea. Do I want nothing or do I want it all, or are these the same thing?
I think I'm thinking in circles. Perhaps we live in circles, too.
WTF Day 24.
TFR. SYT.
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