October 3, 2008
I mentioned being in kind of an emo-kid mood a couple weeks ago. I suppose I owe something along the lines of an explanation. After all, what would I use this blog for if not to bitch about my life?
Basically I took a look around at my friends and see them getting advanced degrees, or buying houses, or starting families -- doing something with their lives -- and I look at myself doing pretty much the same thing I was a decade ago just for better pay. That can make a person feel like he's been wasting his time.
Weird thing is, I don't really have any desire to get another degree -- every time I even consider it a very small-yet-loud part of my brain yells, OH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE NO, and that's pretty much the end of it. So it isn't really that I feel like I'm competing. Not totally, anyway. I don't feel diminished somehow by my friends getting a masters or a PhD, or getting off the rental treadmill.
It's more of a competition with myself. Ten years ago I was just finishing college, starting a job, renting a room from a friend of mine, and single. Nowadays I have a better job, renting my own place, and still single. There have been improvements, sure: I make more than triple what I did at that first job, and not having a roommate is nice (if quiet). And I have a car now, compared to then when I was bumming rides or walking everywhere. But in a couple of fundamental ways it just feels like nothing's changed.
So maybe I am competing after all, just not with any one person. And the fact that I'm in this situation isn't really anybody's fault but my own: It was my choice to stubbornly hang on to the hope of becoming a freelancer, racking up a year's worth of debt that I just finished paying off; it was my choice to live in Fairfax County instead of closer to work where rent is cheaper; it's my utter lack of social skills that keeps me inside instead of going out and meeting new people. As the saying goes, the only thing my problems have in common is me.
I guess the weird thing is what set that whole mess off: A friend of mine just recently drove across the country to finish her PhD in Seattle. Again, the degree doesn't bother me -- it was the road trip she took to get there. In addition to some good memories it reminded me that it's been a damn long time since I just took a trip for the sake of going.
In 2005 I drove down to Orlando to see my sister and brother-in-law. But that was about the destination, to borrow the cliche, not the journey -- most of the initial trip was in the dark! After seeing my friend's pictures (and beginning to scan my own from way back when (note: work in progress)) I want to see the country again.
And then I realize that I can't really take two weeks off work (one week out, another back) and that I'd spend several hundred dollars just on gas. Sometimes, I think, I'm a little too practical. But if I'm able to buy a house next spring maybe I'll see where the early fall takes me.
Maybe after hitting Yellowstone I'll shoot up to Vancouver then run down the Pacific coast (which I've never seen from ground level) to San Francisco. After all, nothing says "getting away from it all" like a tour of Alcatraz. (Note to self: If Ed Harris is on the tour, come back later.)
Maybe I'll hit Las Vegas again, now that I'm old enough to gamble away some hard-earned money. Maybe I'll see stuff we bypassed in the 90s like New Orleans or The Alamo.
And maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll ditch this stupid notion that I'm not living up to my potential just because I'm not keeping up with every Jones on the planet, and enjoy seeing where my life takes me.
