I Am Just an Ordinary Person, Just Like You

I am still in college. I have transferred one time, taken off two semesters, failed three classes, changed my major four times, and been in college for five years. I know, what a loser, right? I see my friends getting married, and moving into careers becoming successful. And here I am, lagging behind the rest of the pack, not even sure if I want to catch up. The truth is, I don't even know if I want to stay in school. What's the point? For the most part, even my friends who have graduated are still working simple jobs like me.

Growing up my mom was non-existent. She was involved with drugs, caught up in her own world, not wanting anything to do with mine. I know this has affected me somehow, but I just kind of avoid thinking about it. I never really felt like my mom loved me. I wish I would have had that woman in my life that could prepare me how to love. I believe having that loving relationship with your mom growing up prepares you to love your future wife. So, I am not going to know how to love my future wife, right?

You grow up with all this pressure to succeed and you think, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I will get it together one day. The next thing you know you are blowing out 23 candles on top of your birthday cake, and you are still having to live with people to make rent. Life is just passing me by.

I believe I am a smart guy. I have taken philosophy, which taught me life is meaningful only if you create meaning for yourself. I used to be a Biology major. I learned that I evolved by chance out of a primordial pond. I have taken business classes that taught me to make all of the money I can. Not once, in my 19 years of being a student has a teacher of professor asked me the question, Why are you here? That would have been a great class.

Why am I here? I guess that is the question I am waiting for someone to answer. I don't want to create my own existential reality. That would only be kidding myself. Who am I to create my own meaning? I can hardly get to work on time. If I ever buy into the fact that I am here by evolutionary chance alone, I'm afraid I'll just "off" myself one day. I mean, what's the point? But again if I buy into the accumulation of cash as the meaning of life, I would simply die inside. I can't wake up, kiss my little blond wife on the cheek, climb into a Lexus, and drive off to throw elbows in the corporate boxing ring. I want something that is true and can speak to the growing emptiness the world seems to think I don't notice.

It's not that I'm in the worst place to be. I just can't go through a day without someone asking me what I want to be when I get done with school. That question pushes me into this loneliness where I feel like I am huddled in a glass box that's only big enough for me. I guess I just wish I was something, so I didn't have to become something.

I feel like I am just another life, lost in the margins. Yeah, lost in the magins. Lost in those clear spaces along the edge of pages in a book. Every book has them. You might jot notes in the margins, but for the most part they go unnoticed. They don't represent the book, and they don't define the message. They're simply there.