So this was supposed to be some sort of review of Stephen Chbosky's Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), but I just finished watching Freaks and Geeks last night, so this might as well be a double feature.
There are a million things I can say after finishing both, but basically I have one question in my head:
WHAT THE FUCK AM I STILL DOING HERE?
I'm stuck, waiting, living from paycheck to paycheck, still hoping that one day I'll have enough balls to go off and shape my future the way I want to rather than have to. I haven't given up on my dreams, but I'm starting to think I'll never have the ability to fulfill them.
It's not attractive, this whining. I know that. Clearly.
On an adolescent it's irritating but expected. In an adult, not so much.
The point, though, is that after watching the series and reading the book, my on-going sort-of depression sort of worsened.
I've been in a funk for more than two weeks now, which is longer than most funks I've been in. Normally I get really, horribly, unbearably angsty for two to three days, then it's done.
Now it's like I'm still in that stupid little woe bubble and I'm moving, feeling, thinking sluggishly. And I don't think I want to do anything about it.
Or maybe I do, it's just that I don't know what exactly I'm supposed to do.
Thing is, the series and the book got me thinking. Teenagers don't know what to with their lives. They're in a place where everything is possible and impossible at the same time.
They get to whine about the futility of action, or the lack of choice, or the existentialist bullshit that the rest of the world has grown immune to. It's understandable.
I'm twenty fucking seven.
What's my excuse?
You know right now I just really, really wish idealism would leave me alone.
I don't know how others do it, turn into an automaton and just become completely unfeeling and un-hoping. They're just okay, you know. Things are fine. Things are moving along great. Got to save up and get that house with the one-car garage. Got to get married. Got to have kids.
Grow old and die.
It's soulless, but it's ultimately a lot easier than thinking that there's got to be something better out there for me.
Maybe there is, maybe there isn't, but thinking and accepting that THIS is all that the rest of my life can ever be?
Sucks.
Krys,
ReplyDeleteYou've kinda summed up how I've been feeling the last couple of weeks. I look back and see how utterly my idealism has died within me and note with concern that nothing has grown to fill that space. I'm living the ordinary, average (well, actually, slightly below average at the moment) life I always dreaded having as a youngster.
(I was going to make a joke about how much younger I am than you :p, but that would be unseemly as directed toward a fellow wader in the slough of dispond.)
Sigh.
How sad is it that we are at the points in our lives where - if we were characters in books we read or movies we watch - we would curse and blubber at ourselves for not taking bigger steps or making bolder choices?
And for being the first ever to comment here on my blogger blog (that's just weird), you win a hundred virtual hugs! Yay!
ReplyDeleteMy problem is that I'm still hoping that I'll get out of this rut. It's not that I don't like my current job, it's just not what I envision myself doing for the rest of my life.
I like your point. If my life were a movie, I'd be Joan Cusack on Say Anything. I'm not yet that jaded and I still think there might still be hope for me to fulfill my dreams, but otherwise, yeah. That's totally me.
Like you I think I've always said, I'll never be that sad raisin of an ex-person. I'll change the world! And yet here I am. Here we are.
Been a while since I've read your blog :)
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. I'm three years older than you (well, by next year I will be, anyway) and I'm still wondering what the eff am I doing and where am I going. I'm doing little things that make me happy, going places and meeting people but the bigger picture of it is yeah, I'm still living paycheck to paycheck as well, figuring out how to pay bills when it's not really what I've imagined myself to be at this age. Meh.
Hey Kat, I guess it just never ends does it? I'm not as depressed at the moment, maybe because I still have the binding of my thesis to worry about, but yeah, this limbo sucks.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you're right. Maybe we just need to focus on little things that make us happy :)
Hay, sadly (and I meant that in the best possible sense) I can relate. You guys think you're despondent? Try being 40, err ... 41-ish, as Kurt Vonnegut once said... "it will get unimaginably worse then it will never get better" (I'm paraphrasing of course).
ReplyDeleteAt some point you lot will just have to concede to the fact that, what makes an extra ordinary life extra ordinary is that is it incredibly uncommon. The reason we celebrate? Not because its easy, but because it is hard.
Now, I'm not saying it can't happen to you guys or me (yep, there is still a glimmer of hope there somewhere). It can be afforded by those with sufficient resilience and strength of mind. Just don't let the gloom and doom get you down too much, it will always be there, dogging you around no matter how far you get in life. As my cousin Rey always says "don't resist it, let it wash over you." then pick yourself up, dust yourself off then "Have at it Hoss?" another round.
I know, I know its easy to say... hey, I'm old what do you want? :)
Hey Marman, good point. But you know I think maybe the very idea that we're still resisting means there's hope :)
ReplyDelete