Do you remember that time in your life, where you thought to yourself that you wanted to be an adult? It was likely when you were around 15 years old and tired of adults not taking you seriously. You knew everything at that point – far more than the adults surrounding you. They seemed to have it so easy – blah, what are bills, anyway? It just can’t be that bad.
You got a little older, hit the cusp of 18 – a legal adult. That was the beginning of life. You would be taken seriously. In Ontario, where the legal drinking age is 19 – well…that’s the true mark of adulthood. Suddenly it was ok to get wasted on Friday night, spend Saturday morning tossing your guts into a toilet (if you made it), spend Saturday afternoon eating the greasiest cr*p you could get your hands on…recover…sleep…repeat. Maybe you went to college or university – class, sleep, drink, etc…class, sleep, drink…puke…repeat. You were an adult though. Those were the days.
At 18 I worked my butt off to try and fail my university classes – if I failed there were fewer expectations on me. I changed plans eventually. At 19, I decided it would be a good time to start enjoying the *periodic* alcoholic beverage. I can admit – I only went to class drunk once J - definitely made the Anthropology of Sex a little bit more interesting. I vomited in backyards, out of car windows, across parking lots…never made it to a toilet though. Good times.
Twenty hit, and so did my rebellion – let’s move to New Orleans. More puking…professions of undying love – a couple tattoos. More good times, memories – oh life was good. Oddly enough, I think I was more grounded then, than I am now. Life was good in the Big Easy- Jazz Fest, Lundi Gras with a Mardi Gras recovery.
By 23 my undying love was over (good choice), I had backpacked part of Europe with my friends (mmmm...more vomit, Spanish Sangria, Amsterdam, beer, sightseeing); loved the life, changed careers a couple of times. Shortly thereafter was a longer trip to Europe. Leanne could travel to escape.
Here I am at 28 and further behind than I was then. I have been lucky, and I know that. I’ve lived the life that some people dream but I’m absolutely clueless. I’m not naïve, though I can effectively come across that way. I’m starting to realize that part of the reason that I can’t sleep in London, is because there is a lull. Huh? Between turning off the lights and falling asleep there is a lull – during that lull I start to think. I have always had this problem. I used to have to keep the television on all night to help stop thinking. Unfortunately when you train yourself to sleep through t.v., you can train yourself to sleep through an alarm (which I really can’t afford to do). Needless to say I went through about a year of having to leave the t.v. on, so that I had something else to focus on at night.
My problem with thinking at night is that all of the self doubt arises. The realizations that I don’t know what I’m doing, or that I’m making huge mistakes. It is past midnight at the moment, and I don’t want to sleep because I don’t want to think. I keep remembering that I am an adult now, and it sucks. I joke about this with a friend of mine – “being an adult was supposed to be easy.” HA HA HA. Ultimately though, when you decide to change your life, you need to come to terms with the life you were trying to stop thinking about. Recently I have made some mistakes that are causing me to remember. I want to sleep so badly, but I just can’t. How did I get here? Moving to London wasn’t supposed to reiterate my own cluelessness. Maybe this is how people find religion?
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