My So Called Life

"The worst feeling is suddenly realizing that you don't measure up, and that, in the past, when you thought you did, you were a fool"





God I love that show. It was cancelled before I was nine and I only began watching it when they played re-runs on MTV. By the time it came on MTV I was 10 or 11 and my mom signed my brother and I (along with his friend john) up for a karate class. After watching the first episode one night, I told my mom that I wasn't really interested in karate, just so I could stay home and watch the show. Oh yeah... I was a dedicated tv watcher even then.



There is something compelling and totally about Angela Chase. It could be her introspection, or her fondness for guys who are totally unattainable and that are bad for you. But more importantly, even at 10, I related to Angela Chase because of her attempt to create her identity in the midst of well...a place (high school) where you are trying to figure out who the hell you are and what the hell you want to do with your life and self.

Today I went to lunch with Angie again. It seems like this will be our main form of hanging out which frightens me because a) I don't want to gain weight and b) lunch is flipping expensive. Despite these two drawbacks I really like Angie. We click on some weird level due to our frustrations with life. I mean we talk about a lot more than just work and post college life, but it is the enduring string that ties us together.

It's weird. New York has changed me and I no longer think the change is bad. I am struggling so hard to just create a life for myself here that a difference is evident in everything that I do. I am a little harden but not in that bad way. I just understand the reality of my position and that I am literally fighting for something that could turn out to be a complete bust. Regardless, creating an identity and forging some life independent of my family (my mom) and my small existence is small town USA, is very difficult.

I am busting to be more than what I am today. Or what I was yesterday. I want to make a statement about who I am and who I can be if I just take the risk to be that girl. Of course I am not going to dye my hair red and start hanging out with a girl named Rayanna Graff (though i wouldn't totally be opposed to either). But I am at this point, that i probably should have gone through when i was 16, where i want to test everything by going against some grain. I want to see who I can become when I am not deterred by own insecurities.

There was a lot of talk about this sort of stuff over lunch. It's so weird when you have spent the last 6 years in a quiet shell and then you emerge out of it with so much to say. There are all of a sudden these things you didn't even know you felt until it comes tumbling out of your mouth. I trust Angie and for some reason I am able to confess fully my concerns about the future, as she of course talked about her own. Her job interview went okay, but she feels like the person interviewing her was a little harsh. she said that she can't go on making little to no money at the bookstore and still being able to feed herself and support her life here.

I too am at that almost breaking point where I can't continuing fulfilling my everyday responsibilities just so I can eat lunch and pay my loans. There is a part of me that wants to have the new york dream but I am quickly realizing that it is waning or I am waning in my attempts.

I never imagined it would be so hard to grow up and become someone. But our conversations are always about how difficult it is, and how time doesn't allow us to hold off on the whole growing up thing. One day you are 10 years old watching MY SO CALLED LIFE while your brother and his friend are taking karate lessons at some shit school up the street and the next day you are an adult or at least on some cusp of adulthood trying to become someone that you don't despise. And it is at this moment that you have to decide who the hell you want to be or you risk fading into the pile of those who couldn't bare being a disappointment to their own dreams.

Like most things, I know what i don't want to be or have in life. A boring job, a boring life, with a boring janitor dude who touches napes. But I feel like I'm a million miles away from figuring out what I do want that doesn't include "pizza. differently pizza for lunch today." Maybe all of my indecision, anxieties and general fears about the future and my ability to endure it are part of those 'growing pains' people talk about. The pains that are more than just physical because it really comes from enduring that great change and adjustment to a life that you have to create for yourself outside of manuals and how-to guides.

It kills me that I have to make a decision soon. I am not prepared for this. I am not prepared to take ownership of my life yet. I would rather just flounder around for awhile and hope that everything falls into place...eventually. Right? Maybe I should just dye my hair and contemplate life sullenly while staring at the guy of my dreams from afar. But the guy of my dreams as of late just put in his walking papers and will not be working at the bookstore come Monday. And even though I am a little afraid of making decisions and taking risks to become 'someone' outside of expectations, a part of me wants to take ownership of my life though I don't particularly know what that entails yet.


My head hurts. I have another interview next week. I should prepare myself with questions and answers but I honestly am in no mood to do that tonight. Combined with studying for the GRE I just can't bare having to come up with answers to "so where do you see yourself in ten years". Because at this point it literally is "not working at the bookstore. not being a complete loser. and being a competent and interesting person I can be okay living with for the rest of my life circa ten years from now". I don't know how well I am doing on that end.

Time for bed.