I think you get to a point in your life where you realize you are your own responsibility, where everything is on you. For me, and probably for most of you, that's when I went to college. I'm back for Christmas break and everything is different. Some of the furniture is moved. They got rid of the futon and instead there's a chair and an ottoman in my study. I liked my futon. But that's beside the point. I get back to my home and it's still my home, but I think my home is now less the place where I am and more the people I'm with. I love my family so much and I don't think I realized it until I went away for a while. And I realize that my family is more than just my biological family. It's the guys I explored my city with in middle school. It's the girl who gave me the blanket I sleep with every night. It's my friend in Ghana, teaching underprivileged children how to write and do math. It's the girl in New York, who I talk to every day even though we have nothing too interesting to say.
Anyway, I realize that I'm being taken care of more and more by myself and my friends. And it's super weird. Not that I'm not being supported 100% by my parents, but that I don't need 100% of their support anymore. And I watch movies with people falling in love and I realize that that might be me, in maybe 10 years. Maybe 10 years from now I'll be married. That's insane. Because I'm just a kid. But I'm not just a kid, and I think this part of my life is the part where I become okay with that. I walked by the park by my house the other day, and I was amazed at how much fun kids have. I think I've forgotten how to have fun. I remember thinking as a kid that adults don't know how to have fun, and I think I'm forgetting. My definition of a good time has been turned into two categories of things:
1. Creating relationships with people. Whether talking to a girl in class, or meeting people at parties, or hanging with my friends, you know what I'm talking about. Meeting the people. It's the better part of my fun.
2. The worst part of my fun, and I think what separates "the boys from the men" in the worst possible way, is the endless competition. We no longer have games, we have competition. I don't play Halo and marvel at the colors and intricacies and feel of the game, of assuming the role of a super-soldier, I play it to kick my room-mate's ass. And you probably do too. It's the same for many other things, when you're a kid, you want to run fast, when you're an adult, you want to run faster then everyone else. And it sucks. It's what makes us successful, as adults, it makes us create better products then everyone else, so people will buy our products, instead of everyone else's, so we can make money, at the expense of everyone else.
I don't know, being an adult sucks in some ways, but it rocks in others. I can't wait until I'm older, until I've gone through law school. Married a really smart brunette who loves my stories and poems. And she plays piano, and likes when I sing along, even though I suck. I can't wait for my 2.5 kids and I'm allergic to dogs so maybe we'll get a bunch of fish or an iguana or something. And we'll live in my hometown, or in the suburbs of Chicago or Boston. I doubt I'll go west coast, that's a bit of a stretch. I really like snow. And the west coast is no place for a lawyer, unless I wanted to be an entertainment or corporate lawyer. I'll still go to my family's timeshares in Hawaii and Spain. I'd teach my kid to ride his bike and pay somebody out the ass to teach him or her to play piano or guitar or any instrument they wanted. Hopefully I'll make good money, and be able to give them every advantage they deserve. I hope I can live up to my expectations, as you can see they're normal, but extremely big.
I don't know if anyone reads this. If you got all the way through, feel free to just say hey.
Cheers, and happy holidays!
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