Winter

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and think is this it? Will everything be anti-climactic from now on? At the age of 25, is this really and truly my life?

I’ve based my entire life on a timeline I drew in Girl Scouts in the third grade. I would graduate high school, go to (a very specific) college, attend law school, excel, and ascend the political ladder rung-by-rung until I reached the office of President before the age of 55. By 64, I would write my memoirs and settle down to a fabulous life of speaking engagements and world tours.

As has been previously chronicled in these pages, my life hasn’t turned out exactly as planned. An unexpected recession caused my life to be put on hold and given me, for the very first time, ample time to reflect on my choices and, ultimately, my goals. When I was nine, living in my childhood bedroom and waiting around the house for the plumber to arrive while my parents were at work was not exactly a part of the “fangst conquers the world” blueprint.

Do I think all this forced self-reflection is a bad thing? Not necessarily. Likely to live life at a breakneck pace given the option, deep thinking is (occasionally) a welcome change. But I am worried that I am losing some of the fire that spurred me to do things when I was younger. And, more importantly, I fear that losing the intellectual stimulus of the classroom and the resultant debate/discussion with my peers is stunting my intelligence. Today, during Jeopardy!, I couldn’t immediately identify Who is Jonathan Swift? as the question-response to the answer “His first satire was ‘A Tale of the Tub’” in the category Born in Ireland. This may seem innocuous to some, but a month ago it would have taken me seconds to answer this question. Instead, I mumbled “it’s that guy who wrote Gulliver’s Travels….starts with a j….swift, that’s right.”

I know I’m 25, which means I have my entire life in front of me. Decades to remember (and forget) who wrote A Modest Proposal, what battle made Andrew Jackson a household name, the common name used for both a fruit and a color, and other little bits of trivia guaranteed to make me your worst nightmare at any local Quizzo event. But it’s hard not to feel a little lost when the dreams you have (or had) for yourself are reassembled to conform with reality.

Am I ever going to be President? No. Do I even want to be President any more? No. But is it hard to watch time tick by and think I should be making more progress to being “in charge?” Yes.

So, what’s the solution? I’m going to try and pick up a new skill. I’m not sure what it is going to be yet, though the leading candidates are surfing and Formula 1 racing–both of which seem to require more money than I currently possess. And being me, a new episode of television or a good book will likely distract me from ever taking a lesson. But I’m going to try. Because after four months of wandering through the pathless depths of my mind, I’m ready to put myself back on track in the real world. Perhaps I’ll write about it. Perhaps I’ll forget about it. But it’s nice to have a goal again, even if it is just to help me fall back to sleep in the middle of the night.