Last night I dreamed of speeding tickets and loose women. I can't explain it either.
I've been working my ass off at the bus company, wondering if this is how I'm meant to waste some of my more formative years. But at the same time I've been spending too much time thinking about other people's jobs. Maybe it's the influence of the work bloggers. I know plenty of people who are just plain unhappy with what they do. They want more, they want want better, they want something else. I want something else too, but it has nothing to do with my job, nothing to do with money or a career. I sometimes think they have a better chance of being rich and famous then I do of getting what I want.
It's almost depressing going through the tri-town area that made up my old high school. I see people five years removed from school still working as cashiers at Foodtown, pumping gas at the Exxon Station, and delivering for the pizza place. All good honest jobs, but these aren't people who should be doing that stuff. There are better things out there than that for them. On the flipside I see people who did their own thing after high school and are now doing ok without having gone to college, it's like they got a four year head start on life and while I'm sure many of them struggled they seem to be doing ok.
This leaves me with some great questions. The foremost being, why did I need to go to college? The answer is simple, I didn't. I would have far more money if I hadn't, might even have some semblance of a life. I highly doubt I would be in the unpleasant state of mind I am in if I hadn't just experienced the five year mindfuck that is Rutgers University. So after a lot of heartache and introspection I can tell you with complete honesty, I did not need to go to college. So the next question is, was it worth it? Was it worth giving up what I did, risking what I did, being in the situation I am in now? The answer is simple, absolutely.
The first year of college was an absolute waste. Not just a waste of school, but a waste of life. I was dead for a year. I couldn't get anything going, I could not be who I was nevermind who I wanted to be. The Darkness had me bad.
The next three years (my first three at Rutgers) consisted of one unbelievably annoying, frustrating year and two years that were fun and interesting (although I can't remember why). But that leaves one year, and for the most part it's the year that you've been with me here for.
Let me tell you about that year in a way I haven't before. Let me tell you something you may not have been able to tell from all of this (<---If perchance you are reading this aloud make sure you say "this" with great scorn and disregard). The last year has been one of the greatest of my life.
I didn't get to travel the world, didn't get to see amazing things in amazing places. I didn't get to fall in love (nor did I date, or screw, or anything else that people would think love might be). I did learn to love a lot of people, but not in a way they'd like or understand, hell I'm not sure I like it, caring about so many people with so little reason. Makes me sort of vulnerable. Ay, there's the rub.
I changed this year. Not physically, not necessarily in the way I act, or who I am. My expectations changed, what I wanted changed. What I thought of as reality...changed. It's all new to me.
I had fun, I cared about things, I moped and sulked and wallowed and did everything else I usually would...but there was something that made it all different. And for once that something happened to be me. It was because of it, because of them, because of everything...but in the end, it was me.
I could lose that, or not. I don't know. Time will tell, we will see. And if you stick around long enough so will you.
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