It's One of Those Days

It's one of those days where I just really need to get something down on paper. Or rather, out of my brain and on to a page, of sorts. I often wish my days could just be filled with quiet downtown coffee shops with laptops and art and music but there's that little thing called rent and paying bills that keeps getting in the way.

The other day I was describing to my friend Ryan how I just wanted a job at a place where they would let me be myself. To some degree I have that; I have the freedom to have days off in the middle of the week to go to this and that concert, I can sleep in on a Monday and ease into a new week. But I still have to follow by all the corporate rules. I feel like I'm torn between this vision that I've always had for myself in my head of a successful woman working in a corporate environment with a very put together life and this person that I think I'm maybe becoming.

I blame my parents.

I grew up in the most normal of homes. Everything was stable and there was a very clear plan for how our lives should look. Which was almost exactly the route my father and his father took as well. I think all four of his children have fallen short of his hope for us. But really, that's the American Dream; the life where you achieve things in stages and there's little room for excitement.

School, College, Job, Marriage, House, Baby.

It's all so neat and tidy. It's all so...last generation.

My brain is still convinced that this is correct. That this is the way my life should go and I need to hit all these milestones to be a real person.

My life has really been something like: School, College, Realize College Isn't For Everyone, Move Away From Everything You Know, Make It Work For Who You Are.

That's pretty much as far as I've gotten in 26 years. I think I just need to break away from this mold that I grew up in. I can slowly feel myself peeling out of it but I'm still afraid of what shape I might take on my own. Because if I get a tattoo, it's never coming off. That will be me forever.

It seems like some sort of crossroads. My brain is convinced that it's one or the other: the JCrew corporate life or the tattooed dysfunctional hourly job life. They're probably not mutually exclusive. I just still have that voice in my head telling me that tattoos are not okay, and I have this vision that going to shows is for the youths. And that maybe you need to grow up and snap out of it. But this is pretty much who I am 100% of the time. I might just be afraid to own it. And those people, those heavily tattooed, show going punks have real lives. And jobs. And people allow them to just be who they are. And that's very nice.

Maybe it's time to branch out again. Maybe it's time to see what else this city has to offer. I have to get this image out of my head of who I think I am supposed to be. Or who my parents think I should be. Because let's be honest, I've already fallen short of their expectations. But I'm starting to live up to my own.

It's so silly that even after 26 years I'm still trying to figure all of this out. I'm still trying to grow up. I wonder when that ever ends.