posted
I've decided to take the Tom Waits song as my life theme. I dont want to grow up. I'm 27, and I live in a house with 3 young, hot men, one of whom is my sweetie. I rarely do dishes, laundry, or anything else that involves cleaning. I stay up till all hours, I party hardy on a regular basis, I drink too much and eat food that is bad for me at 4 am. My sweet little old lady neighbor hates me, and I quite frankly cant stand her(gardening busybody). I work 2 days a week at a job where I have no supervision, access to the internet, and that pays me just barely enough to live. I dont own a car, I dont own a bike... I dont really own anything that couldnt be packed into a box and shipped to Puerto Rico on a moments notice. I talk to whoever I want, and way to many of my friends are bartenders. I wear fishnets and short little skirts to my job in a highly professional building in the middle of downtown, and flip off the business people who glare at me on a regular basis. I go flower poaching through my neighborhood when I have a yen for greenery instead of cultivating my own(but never from my neighbors garden. I'm pretty sure her flowers are cursed). When I walk into Goth Night on Wednesdays, the DJ shouts my name and the gay bartender starts my drink. I get catty looks from 18 year old girls when their boyfriends hit on me. I get catty looks from 40 year old women when their husbands hit on me.
In other words, I am now living the life that I thought would be pretty freakin cool when I was 18 and working 60 hours a week and living a highly moral, admirable life. I was already grown up back then, and now maybe I've grown down. What was so important then... appearances, stability, responsiblity, seems so trivial now. And yet... I still have that grown up me inside my head, making me feel guilty for pissing off the neighbor lady yet again. For being hung over, yet again, on a Tuesday morning. For not being able to pay the rent, bills, or cleaning lady on time because I barely made enough to eat for the week. For going to a martini party and being amazed at all these grown up people with their grown up lives that actually seem to be pretty cool(shocking!). For spending more time sitting in a coffee shop reading than will ever be spent at home cleaning. But most of all, making me feel guilty for not growing. For becoming afraid of change and structured learning. I started this growing down process by changing everything, by rejecting atrophied ideas and embracing everything new and interesting. I grew into myself, and I loved it. But, now, it seems to have come to a grinding halt. The same depressions that plagued the grown up me have followed me on my journey and settled in to my new routine. They suit me a little better now, because dark circles under your eyes look much better framed by heavy black kohl and accompanied by bitch boots and good music. But they still suck the joy from life.
Anybody else ever go on this journey? Anybody else ever decide at the last moment that "responsible" life just wasnt working and decide to do something about it? Hmm??? Share???
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Live your life the way you want, but remember - you reap what you sow.
At some point, you may become old. Will you have the financial resources to take care of yourself?
I have found that living in the now can be wonderous, but being caught unprepared by tomorrow can be painful. (think of drinking and hangovers as a metaphor for life )
And I firmly believe "growth" has different definitions for everyone. You just have to find yours.
quote: I'm 27, and I live in a house with 3 young, hot men, one of whom is my sweetie. I rarely do dishes, laundry, or anything else that involves cleaning. I stay up till all hours, I party hardy on a regular basis, I drink too much and eat food that is bad for me at 4 am. My sweet little old lady neighbor hates me, and I quite frankly cant stand her(gardening busybody). I work 2 days a week at a job where I have no supervision, access to the internet, and that pays me just barely enough to live. I dont own a car, I dont own a bike... I dont really own anything that couldnt be packed into a box and shipped to Puerto Rico on a moments notice. I talk to whoever I want, and way to many of my friends are bartenders. I wear fishnets and short little skirts to my job in a highly professional building in the middle of downtown, and flip off the business people who glare at me on a regular basis. I go flower poaching through my neighborhood when I have a yen for greenery instead of cultivating my own(but never from my neighbors garden. I'm pretty sure her flowers are cursed). When I walk into Goth Night on Wednesdays, the DJ shouts my name and the gay bartender starts my drink. I get catty looks from 18 year old girls when their boyfriends hit on me. I get catty looks from 40 year old women when their husbands hit on me.
When I was 20, this sounded like Heaven. Now that I'm 30, it sounds like Hell.
Life is all about attachments -- to places, to things, to other people. Buddha understood this, although he also understood that almost all pain and suffering comes from attachment.
Again, when I was 20, I was pretty darn sure that Buddha was right: that enlightenment ultimately meant shedding attachments to self and others. But while he may have been on to something -- and ten years later, with a wife and a child to whom I'm rather attached, I'm not sure he really was -- the problem I had was that I was just as attached to my lifestyle as the worst yuppie.
And so are you. Your life, free of care and responsibility, manages to combine the worst elements of slackerism with all the slavish dependency of lifestyle maintenance. Consider the pride with which you emphasize the "gay bartender" in your life, or the defiant way in which you brag about stealing flowers from your neighbors.
You made a conscious choice to reject the life you were living at 18 in favor of the life you are living now. And as with all lives, there are costs associated with the one you've chosen. One cost, of course, is that you're trapped in a subcultural bubble; read some Nick Hornsby for a picture of what that'll be like for you in another five years. Another is that, lacking the need for responsibility, the habits that produce stability and dependability inevitably atrophy.
I had a lot of sex with girls who fit this stereotype shortly after college. I, myself, probably fit this same stereotype for a while. But that's all it is: another stock character, an extra with a few lines that maybe gets to follow the hero on his voyage and provide comic relief.
To actually be the hero of your own story, you need a story arc. Which means you have to evolve.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
"Your life, free of care and responsibility, manages to combine the worst elements of slackerism with all the slavish dependency of lifestyle maintenance." I'm going to frame this sentence and hang it on my wall. If it werent refering to me, I'd probably enjoy it even more, but even in the brutality of its honesty I find it... compelling. It's something the cruelest part of that old me wishes my brain would allow it to say to the new me.
The "I'm cool because I dont care" additude is one I have tried to avoid at all costs, but which apparently has snuck in without my knowing it. I am bragging, to a certain extent, about the life I allow myself to live. I dont think about it that way, because it makes me feel guilty, but I do enjoy many of the choices I have made. I dont neccesarily feel defiant towords those who dont choose to live this way, but I do thumb my nose at those people and things that remind me of what I used to value so highly. I recognize the immaturity of this and cringe, and I look at what I wrote that now sounds like nothing so much as swaggering braggartism, and cringe some more. But, it's honest. The only reason for writing those feelings out is to allow myself to see them honestly. Especially in a public forum where people can call a spade a spade and a slacker a slacker.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
1) At some point you can no longer be a young, irresponsible woman living the high life and damaging your body, because at some point you will get older, and you wont be able to do it any more. I try not to interfere in anyone's choices until they ask me for advice, but I would suggest that you at least make sure that you can survive (physically and emotionally) when you're no longer physically able to do what you're doing now (and also that your plan doesn't involve your current sweetie deciding to retire from this lifestyle at exactly the same time as you).
2) However you live your life is your life and not mine, but (don't you love 'buts'?) if you don't want to be a grown-up, just don't expect others around you to treat you like one. Which basically just means if you act irresponsible you give up your moral ground to be offended when people assume you will act irresponsibly.
Hope I didn't sound too harsh, mostly I'm just tired I guess. Anyways, if you like the choices you made, then your living your life as you wish, according to your standards, and that, at least, is a positive thing.
posted
Great song. This is a weird coincidence because I make a special point of listening to it on repeat every day as I get ready for work. Sometimes I use the Ramones version. Sometimes I use 'Knock Yourself Out' by Jon Brion. Every once in a while, for a dash of just wild irony, I use 'Big Time' by Peter Gabriel.
For some reason I find it very comforting to hear, as I look at myself in the mirror, tying my tie, buckling my belt, getting ready for another day of politely being a responsible adult. Keeps me from feeling like one.
I also consider it to be a theme; I use it to remind me that life is not really that serious, and that I'm not doing any of this just to pay the bills. That really, deep down --
I'm a rebel.
I often sing it to myself as I work, goofily drawing odd looks from the kids who work under my supervision. "I'm a rebel," I tell them. And they make fun of me, and I say "You don't KNOW me," over and over again.
However, I have nothing at all to say about your life.
But I'm also 27. I live alone. I don't have any nosey neighbors, really, that I know of. I don't know any gay bartenders, and I don't wear fishnet stockings to work.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Now I'm being serious. I AM a rebel. My rebellion is in the way I think, the way I use my mind. I don't need to dress oddly or act out publicly to show off the ways I am different from other people. My secret weapon is that I *don't* seem different. (Which is part of what makes me so wonderfully unique). Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Perhaps, foundling, you can learn from my example. You see, my young friend, when you are truly comfortable with yourself, as I am, you no longer need to prove anything to anyone, except to yourself.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hobbes: Those are all good points. I have lived a clean life up till now, and still refuse to smoke or do any drugs that are harder than alchohol. But, even now I can sense the effects of alchohol on my body, and know I will have to give it up soon. And, I have noted a marked difference in the way people treat me now. People on the street assume things about me that, while I know they are not true, are understandable given my appearance. I expect nothing better from those I dont know. Those whom I do know and who know me are held to a higher standard, though. Regardless, this negative judgment by appearance is still new enough to hold a certain appeal in its alienating effects. I've been judged on both sides of the same coin, and neither really means a hell of a lot of anything.
afr: Be glad your money will be going to such a worthy cause. I mean, it COULD be being used to feed the hungry mouths of innocent babes. Instead, it will go to feed my meth addiction. hurray.
TL: I tend to have "Big Time" running through my head when I'm walking down the street feeling like a badass. That and "sledge hammer". Oh, and "In the Coloseum" is my favorite pool song. Anyways, I understand what you are saying. The knowledge of internalized rebellion is a strength, and it doesnt require alienating behavior. My rebellion used to consist of reading James Gleick while out with friends, or writing deep, dark thoughts on the backs of napkins and leaving them for the waiters at Chilis to find and throw away. Not much more mature or satisfying than wearing black and hissing at yuppies (not that I've ever done that, mind you).
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
)![[Smile]](smile.gif)
