In one of the many ironies to be found in life, as the year is gaining momentum, I feel as though I'm losing mine. Greatness seemed to be on the horizon only months ago. I like to think it still is. But I have graduated and little has changed. And I don't know why, but I expected everything would. I expected a job, or at least some tangible measure of success. Because after working so hard for four years [in my case, four and a half -- insert own punchline here], you expect something at the end of it all... but I'm still a waiter. I still can't pay my own rent. I still am among the throng of aspiring writers. So much has remained the same, painfully so.
Don't worry. This isn't a sob story. I'm not blaming the slow economy [though it certainly doesn't help]. I'm not aiming for your pity. In fact, I'm one of the more fortunate people I know. I don't have to dive into a job just to pay the bills because I've got parents who support me [literally] and my dream. I've got a badass tri-bike and all the gear I could ever want to go along with it. I live in a great apartment, in a great city, get to train and hang out with my brother. I drive a diesel truck I love, read what I want, hang out with good people, drink cold beer, skype with the cutest 13 month old alive, write and train as much as I allow myself to, I don't have $45,000 in college loans -- the point being, my life isn't something out of a Sylvia Plath novel. Far from it. It is difficult right now, confusing, but life is supposed to be these things [so I've read and been told].
[...And of course, as I'm writing this, Coldplay's song "Lost!" comes on... of course -- another unfunny irony].
The comparisons don't help either. But I make them anyway. By my age:
F. Scott Fitzgerald had published This Side of Paradise. LeBron James had scored around 9,000 points in the NBA. Mark Spitz had won seven olympic gold medals. John Keats had written "Ode on a Grecian Urn," which ends with one of the best lines of poetry in english: "beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." Capote had written Other Rooms, Other Voices...
After all this rambling and throat clearing, I guess we've arrived at what I've had to say all along, which is that I have never felt more mediocre, yet so desperately wanted to be great.
....
Just as I'm about to click the "publish post" button, the song changes on my iTunes, and Elvis' "If I Can Dream", starts blaring through the speakers... I'll let him take us out.
"Deep in my heart there's a tremblin' question
Still I am sure that the answer, answer's gonna come somehow
Out there in the dark, there's a beckoning candle, yeah
And while I can think, while I can talk
While I can stand, while I can walk
While I can dream, please let my dream
Come true...right now"
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