Before I went to college, I technically had only a ninth grade education. I was kicked out of school my sophomore and junior years for absences, and I forget whether or not I bothered to try again my senior year. With chronic headaches, dizzy/fainting spells, and sometimes even hallucinations, I spent most of ages 10-20 lying down in a dark room (I got better). Anyway, for a few years now I've been having stressful dreams that I am forced to return to finish high school. When I was in college, my dreams required me to go to high school by day and college by night. Since I have been working, in my dreams I have to go part-time so I can go to school during the day.
But this week, I've had a breakthrough. The other night, I dreamt I was getting ready to go back to high school. I got dressed, packed a bag, and started walking (as I did when I went the first time). Then, as I reached the other side of the hill I live on, I stopped in my tracks and looked at that big brick prison in the distance.
"...I don't have to do any of this shit," I said out loud to myself, and turned on my heel to head back home and get ready for work.
This was the first time I had one of these going-back-to-school dreams without going into the building and having all kinds of roadblocks; incorrect schedules, emergencies keeping me from attending so I get kicked out again, all kinds of anxiety provoking things. My dream self finally called shenanigans and stopped giving a shit.
And I have to think that's a good sign for me.
Like many other "Millennials", I have been living in a state of suspended adolescents. While I like to think I have a better excuse than most, what with my years of poor health and overall lack of experience, it has lately been bothering me that I haven't done more to catch up. I have been living in a room that most parents would scold and ground a kid as old as my behavior would suggest I am, and I put about as much thought as a kid that age would in my future and my finances. During a recent stressful week, I online-shopped almost a whole effing paycheck (that's almost two weeks of work) on stress-relieving impulse buys. I was humbled when it came time to pay my rent and pay for my dog to have a small procedure done.
My life can be fun, but it isn't a game. And my money is not a toy, it's the material to build my life. And it's past time I start acting like it.
And now looking over the last couple of weeks, I can see where I'm finally trying. I'm pretty sure I just dusted and cleared out a bookshelf that hasn't been touched since I was supposed to be in high school. The other day I volunteered at church sitting in a room while little toddlers ran around eating Cheerios and generally not needing me there, but at one point a child got upset and came running to me with a snot-and-tear-stained face and open arms. With as many times as I've skipped going home from work to essentially do that same thing to men I've dated (snot and tears included, for sure), it was almost surreal for the most valuable thing in someone else's life to run to me in a time of sadness. Yeah, I passed that kid off to a nine year old with more baby-wrangling experience, but I totally picked that kid up and let him bury his face in my shirt for a handful of seconds. I might not have gotten him to stop crying, but I was a shoulder to cry on... and a shirt to use as a Kleenex.
My hope is for cleaning to become my impulse-shopping, and to maybe replace at least one of my daily three or four Simpsons episode viewings with reading. I'm never going to be one of those fully-realized uber-adults who cooks elaborate meals or keeps a picturesque garden, but I can at least be a functional adult with a home with a visible floor and knowledge of something besides Simpsons trivia. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having the Simpsons trivia, but some other things might be nice, too. A little reality to go with the whimsy.
There's clearly no risk of me losing my childlike idiocy, so there's no harm in tempering it with only the essential skills for living a point-having life.
No comments:
Post a Comment