Glass is Half Empty. No wait...Half Full! No Wait...ah, fuck it. Just Give Me A Drink
(Prompted by an email/article by My Obi-Wan)
Here is an excerpt from Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality":
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Though nothing can bring back the hour,
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.
This is the flip side to one of my other favorite quotes - from Shannon Wheeler's Too Much Coffee Man:
Remember when we were young: we looked forward to things. I can't WAIT to drive. I can't WAIT to get a boyfriend. I can't WAIT to graduate. Etc., Etc. Now it's remember how great high school was. Or nothing compares to the feeling of first love. Life was so much better back when we were young. Somewhere between anticipation and nostalgia we should have been happy.
Both poems deal with recouping our dreamlives with the lives that involve us pounding the pavement and rotting in cubicles. The promise of the future versus the despair of the present. How far away the simplicity of our past seems when compared to our overcrowded days of adulthood.
On any given day, I agree with one or the other...sometimes both in the same hour. Things got real after college, and it was the cold shock of realizing that adulthood is going to be just as angst ridden and full of annoyances and complications as every other step of the way. Maybe more so as the shadow of protection that family and college and the excuse of youth was ripped away from us.
And some days all I can think is that we are all so fucked. The few people I know that are happy, are happy with an asterisk next to that qualification. They are Happy*. Which is to say, they're happy, but at what price? Usually sanity or their souls, or some other intangible that i should've given up on a long time ago.
Other days, i believe that we're just a bunch Phoenixes (phoenices? whatever.). Right now we're ashes, we've burnt out to a crisp. But the ignition is coming soon, and a blaze will start again.
I don't know.
All i can say for certain is this: Quitting Cigarettes Fucking Sucks.
There. That's all you know, and all ye shall ever need to know.
posted by The Neurotic Monkey @ 12:52 PM
3 Comments:
Hey I would say that there are still plenty of things to look forward to in life: marriage, children, retirement, financial security...right? I can't wait for retirement! I can't wait until my wedding! I can't wait until I have a house with a backyard and I can have a pooch!
Sure, those things could go sour...but so could/have milestones in our past.
Personally all of my youth milestones have sucked. High school was my worst 4 years to date, prom blew, I never had a boyfriend, I hardly was permitted to leave my house (thanks parents!), evil people picked on me daily until I cried. College was okay but not stellar, there are things I would change or do differently if I had to do it again.
So far the "real world" is decent.
Maybe I'm a Happy* person. I think its all about perspective. And having good friends.
xoxo
Chin up, my love.
Here's some advice from those annoying optimists.
Things always seem worse than they are, and there are people that love you to death.
would that i could keef, but i'm working my shit job now to pay for some hefty current and future medical bills that virtually all insurance companies refuse to cover unless maybe you sue them/get your doctor's to lie, which mine do, but still, that not withstanding, the point of this run-on is i need a crapload of money, even at the sacrifice of living with no friends within 200 miles surrounded by white bread folks and idiots who write letters to the paper i work for about intelligent design. (Did you guys know that science and evolution are just other kinds of religion? That those who believe in evolution in science will get their's after they die? and that "only the bible can explain mysteries like how the sun and moon were formed, and where wind comes from?") Yes, a lot of people up here are THAT FUCKING STUPID. and they're proud of it. like the idea tho, the rest of you should go for it. i'd definitely visit. meanwhile, i'll be up here for another few years at the very least, quoting Simpsons to myself in the dark.
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