Transition

When I was in middle school I hated it. All I wanted to do was grow older and go to high school, because lets be honest, do you remember what a little shit you were back then? Classes of 25 to 35; 11, 12, and 13 year olds experiencing puberty and responsibility for the first time, herded together in some sort of "only the strong survive" environment.

Then there was high school, surely it had to be better then what I'd already seen in 6th through 8th grade. (If you've taken the time to read the side bar then you already know that I didn't fare so well.) High school was important, it would reflect on the rest of your life. Well, between cutting class to get stoned out of my gourd and dealing with the idiosyncrasies of sex I thought I was never going to make it out alive. (Unbeknownst to the majority of my friends I remained a *gasp!* virgin until I was almost twenty.) All I could think about was graduating. Getting out of the petri dish of teenage angst and melancholy and going anywhere else. It didn't exactly pan out as I had anticipated, I switched high schools in the middle of 11th grade and some credits failed to transfer over. Two weeks before I was set to march to that god awful "Pomp and Circumstance" so I could smile like a jack-ass and mug like a money for the cameras of my family members who never thought I would make it that far, I was told that I could not graduate. I would have to attend summer school (again), and then receive my diploma in the mail. I didn't go to summer school, I had to work and the night school was so god awful scary that I just said fuck it and took my GED test. Four hours of an examination and two weeks to receive my scores and I was a bona-fied high school graduate, with my Good Enough Diploma. A piece of paper that let me know, no matter how I did it I managed to pull through.

I did a walk in admission to a fine public college in New York and was accepted on the spot based on my SATs. (Hey I said I didn't graduate, I never said I was an idiot; a fat, lazy, bastard perhaps but not an idiot.) And four years later I walked away with a new piece of paper that rendered the old one moot.

Here I sit in my mid twenties staring at a computer screen every day, wondering when I will feel as if I have grown up. I see the split in my friends, those that are willing to make an attempt at creating a life for themselves and those that wish to revel in the life that was:

You have your over achievers, the ones with high paying jobs and flashy apartments. They may still be clinging on to the shreds of a college relationship torn and battered over time but still viable, or so they think.

There are your run of the mill slackers. These are the individuals who live with their parents or perhaps in an apartment with five or six other people attempting to re-create that beer filled amniotic sac that is college.

There are the wastes. Those who "showed such potential" and did nothing with it so now every time their names are mentioned people hang their heads nodding as they say to themselves; "such a waste."

The marriage bound, who believe their lives are as "carefree and interesting as those on 'Sex and the City'!" But would quit their jobs and lose their well crafted identities if the right size rock was presented to them. Usually with the marriage bound are the mommy seekers. They have tried to cut it on their own but just can't seem to do their laundry and shop for groceries.

Hangers on who aren't even in their twenties anymore but their girlfriends/boyfriends are and it makes them feel so damn good. These are the people who know the secret number to Nobu and who can breeze past the hulking guards outside the cities finer night life establishments. They are usually well endowed in the inheritance department while severely lacking in the pants.

And then there's me, and those like me who are just too confused to even try to pull our heads out of t a collective ass that is our mid twenties. I don't feel like an adult. I still cry for my mom when it hurts too much but there's that massive stack of bills on my desk at home that reminds me that if I wasn't "grown" I wouldn't have to deal with them. I'm torn between the friends who sit at home and take odd jobs and seem to have nothing stressful to care for. Such a seductive life to not have to worry and hustle, commute and stress. I unfortunately have neither the funding nor the abilities to live such a grand life, and when I really think about it I'm not sure I would want to.

Part of me wants to find the exotic in life. Quit my job and run away to someplace I've never seen. Do something risky for a living or something that would make for great stories. I look at her or see the people he's met, and I stare at the unoffending neutral colors of my workspace and I think about how my once risky and interesting life has grown as mundane as the beige and tan I'm forced to surround myself with everyday.

I'm in transition folks, you sell your soul and loose your spark. If you find it let me know, I really could use it about now.