Michelangelo sibyl from the Sistine Chapel

 

some momentary doubt

For part of the afternoon, I began to doubt myself. As I sat outside the laundromat watching the clouds roll by, I started to wonder if my trip is merely just a way of running away from being more responsible. I mean I am thirty and I don't have that much to show for it. I don't own my own house nor do I have much else to separate myself from that of a college student. Oh, my income is far greater than when I was a student, but in most respects my life is essentially the same as it was then. I'll be paying for the trip in cash, but all of that money could just as easily have gone toward a downpayment on a house.

Then I started to think some more and I know that I have changed since college. I am not the same person and going on a trip does not mean that I haven't grown up. I have put some serious time and effort into this trip and I don't see it as a waste of time. Over the past few weeks I have learned more about Europe than I have in years and to just dismiss all of it would be a shame. Besides seeing another part of the world is not the same as partying three nights a week for months at a time.

I also realized that I still have problems with limiting my world. Quietly sinking into the everyday world of nine to five holds very little interest for me and in the past I have done all that I can to avoid it. Even though I seem rather average and middle class this doesn't stop me from having the occasional fantasy of being an expatriate. Going to Europe might actually give me some new insights about myself and maybe change the way that I see the world. I certainly don't see myself as too old to learn and experience new things. So often people fall into the same rut and I don't want that to be me.

I'm not sure why I let myself feel that way this afternoon. I mean I've wanted to go to Europe for years and now I am finally getting my chance to go. Why would I want to second-guess my reasons for going? I deserve to have some fun in my life and I am tired of the continual scrabble to do better. Climbing the professional ladder never had that much meaning to me, because it really never seems to lead anywhere that I want to go. Maybe I just want to be young again.

Somehow I know that I probably will settle down within the next five years. Someone that I have yet to meet will come along that will change my mind about love and marriage. Soon after meeting that person everything in my world will be completely different than it is now. Of course I don't see myself as being the average kind of parent either. I guess that I still live under the illusion that I am unique, but that might not be such a bad thing either.

...

Tuesdays have a habit of depressing me, but I thought that I had brought that to an end. At least a little David Bowie made things seem a little brighter, because we all know that Major Tom's a junkie.

 
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