It's a government-issued-well-lit-with-fluorescent-lights type of room equipped with standard metal desks and matching muted file cabinets. Everything is laid out in perfect order - all you have to do is cross the T's and dot the I's. Simple, mindless... boring.
We go along in our bodies like robots. We are told that our "good girl" days abruptly end at puberty which is the time to start the rebellion. This anti-parental uproar lasts well into our teen years, only to be re-directed at The Man after the age of eighteen. Our second decade of life is supposed to be filled with alcohol, drugs, casual sex with random strangers, sexual experimentation, and late night confessions with girlfriends over fast food. This time is also supposed to be filled with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and built in perseverance to make it through college and or grad school. We are supposed to find our soul mate during this decade and have a predetermined cookie cutter wedding in our families' choice of religion while working on starting pop out kids before the big 3-0.
Once we hit that sudden decade shift, things are supposed to change. Wrinkles form, flesh sags, and backs get sore. We're also supposed to have figured it all out by then - know what we want to spend the rest of our lives doing, be a house owner, maybe pop another kid out. We're expected to live the Great American Dream of having a family life while balancing a social one. The rest of our lives are considered not to be our own, but revolving around our children which become the soul purpose of our lives (generally filled with soccer games, PTA meetings, and incessant whining). We are instilled to think that we must pass down the familial dreams and beliefs that we bestowed upon us.
And yet, here I am, twenty three with a brain-wracking history of mental health issues, self-fulfilling prophecies, and $6.43 in my bank account. While all my former peers are checking off items on those age lists, here I am sitting on a cliff of fear, wonder, and shame. Why do we hold ourselves to these mandated age lists? What is the function of words like "should", "expected" and "supposed to"? Why are there all these unspoken age limit rules about MY life? And more than that, why do these things prey on my gullibility to believe that this is real? Why do I hold MYSELF to these standards?
The alternative life is beyond that aforementioned cliff. It is past the paperwork, and the dim, flickering fluorescent lights. It is past the lines of my peers with indifferent and passive facial expressions, matching their approach to life. It takes unspeakable amounts of courage to plunge into the dark abyss of the future unknown.
So here I go, feebly tossing my fragile human ego into the deep journey downwards. I'm going to learn things along the way - like motivation, confidence, and ultimately self-acceptance. I've taken a trip in the right direction - living a simpler life and coming to terms with that. I am going to be proud of working at a corporate grocery chain, giving helpful customer service while earning minimum wage, even though I hold a flimsy piece of paper saying that I know a bunch of shit about accounting. This is how it starts. And maybe one day I'll be proud I'm not sitting at a government-issued desk, checking off things on an outdated age list. I think I'll just make a new one.
