04.17.08: The thing is...

Yesterday I sat, sipping Jasmine tea, relaxing my muscles, relaxing my mind, prepping for another evening of Bikram yoga. Sean, a friend from college, enters the teahouse, ready to try Bikram…for the first time.
Looking at him I realized how different he appeared since the last time I had seen him. It was such a strange feeling; wondering where the time had gone, wondering what it was that we were supposed to being doing with our lives.
Last July, six weeks after college graduation, we met up in Copenhagen. We lay out in the park, drank beer, and smoked Kings cigarettes.
It felt like life was upon us. We were embracing the unknown, the dreams everyone had told us we could accomplish. We were becoming “what I want to be when I’m grown up.” Or at least we thought we were. Eleven very long months later we sit in this teahouse and realize that nothing much as changed. Yes we have this piece of paper stating that we did our time, accrued debt, and are prepared for this thing everyone calls the “real world.”
I’m not sure what or where the “real world” is. All I know is that I spent five years getting into $20K of debt, only to get a job making about the same a year after taxes. “Welcome to the real world.”
So we salivate over our dreams and jasmine. We (I) think about the next five to ten years. Where will we be? What will we be doing? Will I ever pay off all that money?
It’s daunting, a quandary. “When will we get there?” I have to remind myself, daily almost, that we’ll next get there. It’s all a journey and trying to get “there” is fruitless.
We’re supposed to enjoy, I guess, between our nine-to-fives, daily commutes, and other mundane activities.

The thing is sometimes I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to separate myself from my job, my money, and my clothes. It all seems to mesh together. Alas is the life of a young and broke girl.

She sits daydreaming and pricing plane tickets to places she can’t pronounce. She dreams about Italy and expensive shoes she can’t afford… Silly girl.