The End of (College) Days
Graduation and real life are approaching. Not for another 9 months, but it’d be good on me to start thinking about it now. Luck favors the well prepared, as they say.
I try to visualize what the day after graduation will be like. Will I have somewhere other than my parents’ home to stay? Will I be able to move out of my apartment in SLO and find somewhere of my own to call home? Will I find a way to socialize and get out of my own bubble once I’m not surrounded by my colleagues? I can’t really see me being happy in any case.
The “Good” Scenario
I find an apartment in a city. I might not have a vehicle anymore, but I can get around using public transportation. I have a job at some software development company that designs video games. The work environment is nice; it’s stressful from time to time, but once work is over I can come home, kick back, and relax. I don’t feel like my soul and life are being wasted. The wages I’m earning are quite good: it’s more money than I know what to do with, since I’m used to saving and not extravagant spending. I might have someone to spend money on: whether it’s a SO or some mentee/little brother sort of deal. On the weekends I might have some (social) club to go to, where I can meet people and not be a hermit. The days are spent with friends, but they don’t really have to know who I am. The 9-5 routine sets boundaries like that.
Other than the routine, I’m not quite sure with what I’m doing with my life. Sure, I have other projects that I’m working on, like that video game for the iPod Touch that I brag about to people at parties, but I’m actually sad on the inside. A profound sadness, that my hypothetical SO doesn’t understand, and has given up trying to understand. On the weekends I can do what I like, but it feels more like a prison life than a free life.
My parents don’t really talk to me that much. My mom will call or email me once in a while to chat, but I don’t visit them except for maybe Thanksgiving one year or Chinese New Year. They’re proud that I’ve got this job with decent wages, but they’re wondering what they did to raise such an asexual automaton. They wonder whether any of their children will eventually produce grandchildren, since none of them have girlfriends, much less wives. I don’t need to tell them anything, other than a once-per-week how-I’m-doing checkup.
All in all, my life isn’t bad. I’m definitely not poor or unlucky. To most people of the world, my life as they see it is an object of envy and desire. But it hurts so much more inside. I contemplate that I’d be worse off in any other situation, but I’m lonely and scared. I just wish someone would reach out to me and deliver me from this lack of meaning.
The “Bad” Scenario
I’ve been lazy. I live in my parents’ house. I don’t have a job, and I’m no better than my oldest brother. I don’t really wake up in the mornings or afternoons anymore. When I wake up, the first thing I do is check my email and the daily comics and other daily things. I don’t go out of my room until I need to use the restroom, and hygiene has been switched off to an every-third-or-fourth-day thing. I contemplate working on one of my projects, but instead I laze around, reading articles online under the false impression that I’m increasing my knowledge of the world. I don’t really go out anymore. My friends all have moved on with their lives, but I haven’t gotten out of my social bubble and made new ones where I live.
My projects sit unfinished, and untouched. I hate many things. I can’t stand other things. My phone rests on my nightstand unchecked, with no messages to read.
My parents bear my lack of activity and wonder why their children are such failures in life. My parents no longer ask me how I’m doing — they’ve given up on us, and to them, it’s a test of God to bear us. There’s no hope for any of their children to bear offspring, but that’s okay with them now. They’ve made up with God.
I hate my life. I think I’m on the verge of suicide, but I can’t get out of the haze of laziness enough even to do that. I would be an alcoholic, but I still hate drinking. Life is worthless; I know mine is. I sleep and I wake. I do nothing. I am nothing.
