 london diary 5.15.01 Six Weeks and Waiting Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself... wait, is this my life? Cause maybe it is someone else's and I accidentally pushed the wrong time travel button and I am really an Egyptian princess and supposed to be sailing down the Nile eating grapes and drinking wine... Oh dear. So the point is my friends, that this is our lives. When do we finally get that? I try, dear readers, I really do try to "seize the moment"! I repeat "carpe diem, carpe diem" in true Robin williams style and I still live half way between the forgotten past and unforeseeable future. Where are our real lives? Two memories come to mind. In one I am about seventeen and after long (probably stoned) discussion with a friend decide that I will be able to call myself an adult when I have a fully stocked fridge at all times-- and not food that mom brought over! The second is circa 22. I am having a spontaneous therapy session with my friend Clare and we chant: this is my life, this is my life... I will embrace MY LIFE! It didn't work. So what is it that we are waiting for all these days of our lives? What decisions are the ones that will allow our restless minds to relax and say this is it! What I am doing right now is real and vital and I love every moment of it. Oh, there are glimpses of fleeting emotion to be sure. But I am usually on holiday, gazing over some peaceful sea in an exotic locale. And today like every day, I am waiting. What I wait for changes with age, with location, with dreams and plans for the future. But I am always waiting for something. Call it nirvana, adulthood, heaven, inner peace, recognizable self- I wait for that transitional moment when I finally get what is going on, when I can conduct myself in my life as a graceful, independent woman instead of the the petulant, hysterical freak that I envision myself to be. GROWN UP ADOLESCENTS OF THE WORLD UNITE! Oh I wait. I wait for the alarm to wake me in the morning I wait for the shower water to warm up I wait for the tube I wait for the zit to grow on my chin I wait for emails I wait for my weekly wage I wait on tables I wait for the previews to end and the movie to start I wait to run out of toothpaste so I can buy more I wait for my clothes to tear I wait for the seasons to change-- spring, spring, where is spring! I wait to fall in love get married have kids grow old. I wait to find my ultimate career change the world make lots of money take a cruise. I wait to find the next thing that I am waiting for. Right now I am waiting to find out whether or not I have gotten into graduate schools. It is (of course) effecting my entire life. Although I am outwardly putting on a brave face and calmly coping with this momentous decision (although some might argue that differently) inwardly I am seething-- "don't you jerks get how important this is to me!!" In the waiting I am discovering that once again I am pinning all hopes of adulthood and discovering my real being on an admittance letter. Oooo, graduate school... it sounds so ADULT, so PROFESSIONAL, so like something that mature, self actualized people do. Humph. Lets face it gentle readers, self actualized people have Plan B's. And C's. Is this what 24 is all about-- moving desperately from one bizarre plan of action to the next? I can't wait for thirty. So here are my plans-- with six weeks left on my Visa I see two distinct paths for myself. 1, I am accepted to graduate school, apply myself voraciously and wow all of my professors. I create an award winning documentary and am sent to study indigenous art in Peru. While in Peru I work with the Peace Corps and effect tangible change. I return to England where I am offered a place at Oxford, get my PHd in a year and travel around the world lecturing. 2, I run out of time on my Visa, have to leave my boyfriend and the city that I love and spend the next two years drinking gin and tonics while crashing on my mother's sofa. I get fat off the booze, start having gratuitous sex to make myself feel better and end up with a pack of towheaded pasty kids in a trailer park in New Jersey. Oh lordy, I can't wait! |
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