So Now What?

I don’t know how to describe the emotion I’m feeling right now. Am I fed up with my life? Am I upset? Am I feeling despair? Whatever I’m feeling, I feel like I’ve reached some sort of insight into something that’s lain under the surface for the last few years.

I’m in mourning for an old life that no longer exists. When I was in school, I used to fear the future. And now I’m living in that future, and it’s just as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Major things are missing from my life. It feels incomplete. When I was in school, I felt full. I was busy, I was surrounded by friends. Now, things are different. And I feel that this is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life. There are no more built-in life-changers, such as a graduation from college or some such event.

When I was younger — in college, for instance — I had hope. I had things to look forward to. Maybe things sucked at times, but I envisioned a time when things would be better. Although I feared the day when I would have to go out into the world and work — the day when I would have to choose something, finally, and stick to it — I had this little hope that when that time came, I’d be a different person, a more developed person. Well, now I’m there, and I’m the same person I was then.

I’m not meant for this kind of life. I’m meant to be a student. I’m meant to be constantly learning, filling my brain with new things; living in dorms, where you don’t have to deal with landlords; not having to earn a living. I’m still a kid inside. The adult world scares me. I don’t feel like I can deal with it.

During my first couple of weeks of college, I seriously considered suicide, several times. Not just as a notion, but as a concrete option. I had no hope. I felt like my old life was over; I couldn’t deal with the big change, college, and with becoming what I thought was an adult.

But at least when I was younger, I had the excuse that I was young. Now I’m not. Now I am an adult, and so my feelings that I’m incapable of getting by in the adult world are compounded by feelings of embarrassment and shame that I’m 27 years old and still haven’t got the hang of it.

This world is a mystery to me. I don’t quite understand how it works.

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day, of course, but my dad was overseas on business, so we all decided we’d do something today (Sunday) instead. Yesterday my mom called me, and I asked if we were doing anything. She suggested I talk to my dad and ask if he wanted to do anything, since he’d just got back the night before from a very long flight. I didn’t call. I don’t know why. Maybe I didn’t feel like speaking to him. Maybe the intellectual pursuits I was involved in — lots of reading and a little bit of writing — seemed much more appealing.

This morning my dad called. He said that he’d made reservations for an early dinner, but that my mom didn’t want to go. He explained to me, with a note of sheepishness in his voice, that he’d yelled at my mom for buying clothes while he was away, and that he’d slammed some doors, and that she decided she didn’t want to go out. He then told me, with a hint of criticism and annoyance, that my brother and I shouldn’t have waited until he got back from his trip and leave the decision up to him; that she’s our mother, after all, not his. Then he asked me to call back and talk to my mom myself, because maybe I could convince her to change her mind and go out.

I called back and talked to her, but she really didn’t feel like going out. One reason was that she had too much to do (she’s in a graduate program right now), but the other reason was the argument with him; she was pissed at him, and she really didn’t feel like going out to dinner with him. I totally understood.

Here’s what I don’t understand. My dad makes six figures. My mom was working last year, but now she’s in school, so I guess their joint income is reduced. But still, he makes six figures. I don’t understand why he got mad at my mom for buying clothes. Maybe she bought lots of clothes. I don’t know. But what really gets me incensed is the fact that they just recently leased a state-of-the-art BMW with a navigation system that works via a little computer screen. My mom rarely drives it; he does. Presumably this purchase was his idea. So what the fuck? They’re allowed to make expensive purchases if he wants them, but not if she wants them?

I’m pretty sure that my dad resents the fact my mom took it upon herself to quit a job she disliked and go back to school to get a degree that she wanted. She’s been in this program all year, and she’s worked hard, and she really enjoys it. She’s in a master’s program to become an art connoisseur. I think my dad is jealous.

I’ve always seen my dad as this big emotional oaf who’s never been able to admit that he’s wrong, who’s never been able to work his way through some crucial self-analysis. I just don’t get the man.

I don’t know what this has to do with my huge resentment of adulthood. I just wish that I’d somehow been better prepared for the adult world.

But maybe this is the first step to changing things. Maybe I first have to achieve a certain level of despair at the way the world works, express lots of anger and sadness and frustration at the fact that the rules of the world turn out to be things I can’t ultimately escape. For the longest time I tried to avoid them. I put off the choice of a college major, I put off the choice of deciding what I wanted to do with my time. I sort of worked for a year, and it was very unfulfilling, so I went to law school because I thought that would save me. When law school got old and frustrating, I looked forward to graduating and moving back up to the New York area, because I thought things would be better then.

And yet I find that I’m still unhappy. Is this ever going to change? It makes me lose hope. In fact, it makes me see the futility of hope. Whatever choice I make in life, there is always going to be a downside. I’m kind of depressed. Well, I don’t know if depressed is the right word. But I’m very disillusioned with the way the world has turned out to function.

First college, then a good major, then law school, then New York. I have nowhere else to go, no more fantasies in which to put my hope. What happens next?

All you cynical realists out there, you who all have known the truth for a while now — how do you deal with life?