Youth: impulsiveness, restlessness, and enthusiasm.
Adulthood: resignation and stability.
Why am I never sure which one’s in charge of me?
Sometimes I feel very grown up, like this morning when I’m sitting here drinking my coffee and listening to Nat King Cole, having just completed a breakfast which centered around leftover cubed steak from last night. Hell, I feel positively middle-aged.
But most of the time, I don’t feel like much of an adult at all. I don’t see a 36-year-old face when I look in the mirror. When I see other people my age, I almost always guess them to be older than me. Especially if I’m not in San Francisco, where Peter Pan Syndrome is as ubiquitous (and as annoying) as the smell of marijuana or the sense of moral indignation.
I don’t really want to be Mister Average Suburban Guy, more concerned with the state of my lawn than with having an interesting life. But sometimes I would like to HAVE a lawn, as well as some of the stability and routine associated with it. Yeah, I’d hire some cute 16-year-old to cut the grass and all, but it would still be mine.
I get restless too, though. I want to go places and do things and never have to commit to one house or one city or one job or one lover. I wake up some mornings a bundle of restless energy, wondering what I should do or where I should go that day. It borders on anxiety, as if I die a little bit by not coming up with some exciting way to pass the time. And I often invest more effort in deciding what to do than in actually doing it.
It’s a little taxing sometimes, but I guess it’s a little better than waking up knowing what I MUST do or where I HAVE to go.
I think it comes down to the fact that I’d like to have a nice little routine to fall back on, but that I don’t want said routine to control my life. More ominous is the fact that I don’t seem much inclined to put in the level of work and commitment necessary to get me to this point.
I hate it when I’m feeling neurotic and self-obsessed on Sunday morning. This wouldn’t be happening if TNT were still running their “In the Heat of the Night” marathons…
