part of a short story i started writing a year ago.

Twenty-five years have gone by, and I might as well not have been here at all. No, for real. So, I finished college, big deal. So, I finished my masters, big deal. I still don’t know what I want, what I’m good at, or how I’m going to get it and then do it.

Something tells me that this isn’t a complete shock to my body. I always sort of knew in the back of my mind, behind the thought that I was destined for greatness, that I actually was destined for a life of mediocrity, like most of manhood.

It’s a little sad. And, some might say this is a quarter-life crisis, but that assumes we’re here for 100 years, and I don’t think I can take knowing I’m only one-fourth finished. It’s also strange to know that if I wanted to, and I’m not saying I do, but if I wanted to, I could hypothetically, possibly, just end it right here and now. I’m not saying I will. I’m just saying I can.

Usually when you say you can do something that’s a good thing. Like, some sort of motivational speaker. “Yes, we can.” Like, the Little Engine That Could or something sort of like that. Ish.

In this scenario, though, knowing that I can pop myself in one way or the other, actually freaks me out. It’s strange that the things we feel we have most control over, our physical bodies, should be juxtaposed with what we feel we have the least control over, our mental capacity to bring about life to come by in a not so terrible way.

I always found it strange that young girls developed eating disorders to prove to themselves that they have the power in their own lives. Yeah, the power to destroy themselves. But my question is this, why would you want to have the power to ruin yourself, when life has it out for you anyway? I guess a logical response would be, at least I was the one who did it, rather than blaming something like the economy, or your older sister for always being the better one, or your teachers for not pushing you hard enough, or your parents, or this that or the other thing. Rather than blaming yourself for not doing the work, you can see yourself as some sort of righteous being, offing yourself to maintain the illusion of control.

I suppose it’s less painful if you do it yourself rather than watching as life bombasts the shit out of you.

From my view now, I see I have two options. I can. A. Settle or B. Struggle.

“Sink or Swim,” she yelled at me. The Lake Bluff Pool was a playground full of sticky, sun baked youth. We would go there all day for more than half the summer. From June 10^th to August 18^th I could count on waking up with chlorine still chemically reducing my hair’s natural shine. I could count on my mother helping make my brothers and sisters our hand-packed lunches. I could count on not having to fill my time up in front of the TV. I was ready every day to jump head first into the deep.

Our mother would join in on the fun just before the adult swim every day at a quarter till. She’d play for five minutes, the whistle would blow and then she’d swim a few laps and sometimes just float face up in the deep end, starring up at the bright blue Midwestern sky. June was her favorite time of year.

I finished undergrad with a useless degree in art history. I was never talented enough to be a great painter or sculptor. I was never someone others described as an artisan, though I hoped one day they would. No, I was of the brand of people that always had so much in them, or so I thought, and needed to express it. Art being that particular venue of “Here. My heart is on display,” I entered into classes at Illinois State. It should have tipped me off from the beginning that if I were really good at this, I wouldn’t be going to a state school, let alone the least reputable of Illinois’s dismal showing of state institutions.

But, I threw care to the wind, as I thought Georgia O’Keefe might or Hemingway or Hunter S. Thompson or e.e. cummings, or some other well known thinking being. My parents, who at this point I viewed as dream-killers, told me to be practical. Dream-killing as they were, I should have known that behind their cries for me to become a business major, was me, knowing I couldn’t be even mildly successful with an art history degree.

Swimming our little hearts out all summer seemed to make summer flip by faster. No sooner was I finished with my laps, was I back in school, learning about everything and nothing. How much knowledge was my little brain soaking up each day? So much that it was hard to take in. Like air after running. Gasping for more oxygen.

I was always looking for something more. English teachers seemed to get that about me. As I entered eighth grade Mrs. McGinley had us tell the tale of our lives thus far. I thought I’d dazzle her with my vocabulary. Using words like “tenacious” and “redundant” when it didn’t necessarily make sense became my go-to move, hoping she would get lost in my sentences, assume I was genius and move on to the next paper, heartily slapping my paper with an A.