You've Got Time

“You’ve got time”

“Don’t stress”

“You’ll figure it out”

“The right thing will find you eventually”

What a load of shit. 

What if I don't have time, and I am stressed, and I can't figure it out? What if the right thing can’t find me because I’m too far down a sink hole for it to hear me screaming its name? What then? I'm truly unsure what I have done to give these people such misplaced, blind faith in me and the trajectory of my future. I feel too young to be out of time. Then again, time has been ripped away from far more innocent and far younger people than me. My mind is eased by the sweet release of sleep - it can wait. Afterall, I’ve got time. 

The days tick away until I hardly notice it's mid-November, and I've forgotten my mother's birthday: prodigal daughter indeed. As if I was so busy as to forget such a thing. She tells me it's ok and pretends it doesn't devastate her, but that almost makes it worse. My exhaustion is relentless, but its validity as an excuse for my unconscionable decisions and oversights is dwindling.

Judging by the fact that the main event of my day is making the mind-numbing, 45-minute commute to work, I figure it must be a Monday. “Work” - what a joke. I spend the ride staring at the clouds ahead as the afternoon sun runs away from me. After muddling through 5 hours of glorified busy work and false niceties, I’m released to find the world sleeping and dark. I begin to wander back home, the same question swirling in my head for the entirety of the drive: “what am I doing here?”. By the time I get to the house, the only activity worth engaging in seems to be sleeping.

As my fingers begin to liven and familiarize with their surroundings, I grab hold of what feels like silky cloth. It balls up in my fists as they clench in weary discomfort. The same fabric tickles my legs while they wake up. What am I wearing? 

As my eyes open, something feels wrong. I can't see a thing. For a moment, I fear I've gone blind over night. Maybe this is punishment for my insolence, my carelessness. I find resolve in the fact that justice has been served to me cold on a platter.

Stirring and stretching in my morning fog, my limbs are all met with hard, cold barriers. Coming to even more, the air feels stale in my lungs, and there’s a heaviness in the space around me. Ready to start my day, I rise only for my forehead to be met with a prompt thwack, forcing my head back down to the pillow.

Confusion and panic start to pool up in my chest, as I push against the wall in front of me. The wall doesn’t give so much as an inch in my favor. I beat my awkwardly restrained feet and fists against every surface in my range to no avail.

Now my chest is heaving up and down with an unfamiliar urgency as I’m aimlessly writhing and rucking my body in an attempt to force these walls away from me. It feels like the weaker I get, the stronger the walls become. Taking half a moment to collect myself, I notice the sensation of some kind of granular shit on my face. 

Suddenly it hits me; I’m in a buried coffin. 

Opening my eyes, I see my efforts were not all for naught, as my coffin has expanded into the shape of my childhood bedroom. This time I don’t wriggle and bash into the walls in protest, but accept the role of the resident corpse. Relief makes its way from my head down my back and through my fingers and toes, but in my mind there is a gnawing sense of disappointment: disappointment that I am waking up to another day doing the same thing as I’ve done everyday for the past 7 months. 

I don’t understand it. The path forward must be somewhere around here. Why can’t I find it? Doesn’t it want to be found? Doesn’t it want me to be happy? 

There’s a suction-like property to old routines. It's so easy to still yourself and let the sinkhole consume you. I feel so tempted constantly to just give in: take up a low-wage career in some industry I don’t hate and accept the fact that I will need to work for the rest of my life. 

I could go to beauty school for a few months and try to make a living among cliquey women who hate each other for entertainment.

or move abroad and fly by the seat of my pants until the money runs out.

or drop everything to try and make it as an actress. 

or pick up a trade like plumbing or electric work, learning to work with my hands.

or make a start in the big city and commit to hustle and grind culture. 

or move out west and join a natural living commune.

or learn day trading and try to make a quick million from the comfort of my parent's couch.

Sometimes I think I'm just lazy or maybe even lacking discipline. Even if that's true what then? Am I supposed to enlist in the military to learn the meaning of hard work and give my life structure? That doesn't feel quite right either.

I could find a cushy white collar job that pays the bills and leaves my evenings free while rotting my mind from the inside out. Put my nose to the grindstone only to look up and find that I have a fully stocked 401k, a head of grey hair, and no good stories to tell. 

There’s too many ways to go that it feels like there’s none. So, I stay put in my bedroom-shaped coffin and agonize. I let my mind wander and run into the walls of its enclosure, simultaneously limiting itself and yearning for a purpose.

I know exactly where I am, yet I feel so. . . lost.