Mixed messages

It's been nearly two years since I quit school, and sometimes it's not clear whether during these two years I've grown beyond my friends who are still in school or if I've simply fallen hopelessly behind.

On the one hand, I've had to show up for work every day, learned how to balance my checkbook. Skipping work is not an option, not if I want to keep paying my bills, which is also something most of my classmates don't have to do, so I show up for work. Every day. 7: 45 a.m. I shop for groceries, plan my meals, cook: living on pizza, beer, and Lucky Charms is not as much fun as you might imagine. No one else schedules my dentist appointments, makes sure I get my annual physical, no one checks to make sure I made it home each night.

I've gotten raises and promotions, researched car insurance, signed lease agreements. I have not spent my weekends getting sloppy drunk, haven't slept around with dozens of guys, haven't dropped out in any one of the possible ways a person could drop out, and in all these respects I seem much older & wiser than most of my friends.

On the other hand, I can feel the ways I've been left behind; the discussions about authors I haven't read, theories I've never heard of, plans for graduate schools that I'm never going to attend, a whole world they're preparing for that is no longer on my path.

And on the other hand (don't ask where that one comes from): the world they're heading for doesn't look as promising as I once imagined it.

Just some of the reasons I don't have many friends at school any more.

Hard to explain my mixed feelings about all this. It's irritating to be working at a job where I know I could do at least my boss's job, and probably her boss's job as well, but know that no one would ever even consider me for those positions, even if I'd been working there for five years or more, just because I don't have a college degree.

Nevermind that my boss asks me to draft letters for her, or that I'm the one who set up our spreadsheets. A lack of a degree means I'm stuck.

Lately my parents have been hinting that I should go back to school. They can help now, they say; we'd be happy to help you out with expenses. And I know it's true. Sometimes I'll see a professor who remembers me, who asks, "When are you coming back?" Even my friend Bash thinks it's time for me to be heading back to school. Or at least that's what he told me last weekend when he was here in town. He thinks I'm wasting my time hanging around here, hanging out with Frank. And since he's a certified genius on a full academic scholarship at MIT, I should probably pay more attention.

And if I had any idea of what I wanted to do, I would. It's just that all the old ambitions no longer seem so appealing. I feel like I have more in common with the woman who works at the bakery than with my friends who are thinking about careers in public policy or plans to become journalists or teachers. I like physical reality: water, wind, the feeling of a knife in my hand while chopping onions, the soft roughness of working wool with wooden needles. I love all these things, and I'm not sure about throwing myself into a course of studies that is all about ideas, that destines me for a life of office jobs, air conditioning, and uncomfortable shoes.

Plus. Bash's motives are suspect. He kissed me. And I kissed him back.

So, maybe I don't know what I want to do, but there is something going on with me that is just totally nuts. I've never felt so full, so sleepy, so wildly alive. This kiss from Bash is not the first inappropriate kiss I've had these last weeks. Clearly, I am ready for something.

And yes. The messages are mixed. Definitely mixed.

Sunday Scribblings