Ending life as a justifiable idiot
I am officially living my final months as a socially justifiable reckless person. In three months I will be promoted from student to unemployed. In three months I will no longer be at school — not like this anyway — ever again. In three months I will no longer be a minor, ever again.
There’s something about being those two things that makes our stupidity acceptable to the rest of the world, as if being an idiot wasn’t such a bad thing since everyone expects you to be.
I confess it isn’t a nice feeling to have, to think about this. Having this perspective in mind makes me realize that I was never really the reckless teenager who appears in teen cliché movies, so in theory, I’ll never get the chance to live this artificially created monetized experience. Bummer.
Mom and Dad raised me right, to be polite, responsible, empathetic, and well-educated. And I’m happier for it, I’m sure. I’m who I am for it, and I’ve come to terms with liking myself a while ago.
However, there’s this resigned part of me that wonders... what if? What if I never cared? What if I never thought twice and experienced life as mediatic propaganda told me to? Having a billion problematic boyfriends, dyeing my hair a billion different colors, having a billion more reasons to go therapy.
I get shivers just thinking of it. I don’t want that life, I never have.
I remember playing by myself with imaginary friends, reliving and creating hundreds of stories to tell myself along the car rides and lonely nights. My imagination was my best friend, and it was always enough. In fact, it supplemented other absences created by the cruel workings of the children’s world and, later, teen’s world.
Perhaps that’s why I never really felt I fit in. As if this world was never really made for me but — lucky — there were thousands of others.
Perhaps it will feel like that in three months. Maybe I won’t fit in the expectations of how a young adult should be. Maybe I’ll wonder how life would be if I tried a bit harder to be like everyone else seem to want me to. But maybe it will be okay. Maybe I’ll be happier this way.
