I'm an adult. I am friends with people who are engaged and a few who are already married. Some are working on building respectable resumes and have their sights set on this grad school or that. Still others have perfected the art of balancing their own worldly concerns on one hip and an infant on the other.
And here I am, not knowing if I'll ever be mature enough to commit to something as serious as marriage while discussing how an ideal wedding would play out, twisting on my Target high heels and being paid little more than minimum wage at two jobs that show nothing of my potential, selling China-made handbags and Egyptian cotton sheets like both were being erased from the world market for all of eternity, a concept which, not unlike marriage, I have difficulty comprehending.
Given all of the above, I suppose you'd think I'm disgruntled, upset about this lot I surely presume I've been handed which has me waking up at the ass-crack of dawn most mornings to return to the same routine I surely presume I'll be performing every day for the rest of my presumably mortal life.
You'd be wrong, though, if you thought that.
This is the U-nited States of goddamned America, and I'm a college student. In all honesty, I don't want the responsibility of being a credible individual. With my silly paid-by-the-hour jobs, nobody has to think twice about how much I know. They probably think I am inspired to write poetry exactly the same as everyone else is inspired to write poetry when it rains and came from my Mama one hot summer mornin' in Johjah or perhaps instead from me Mum in the dead of winter one dreadfully cold December night in the centre of London, depending upon whichever accent I decide to adorn myself with on any given day. I'm your run-of-the-mill, maybe-I'll-get-there-someday 19 year-old girl sipping on Texas-sized daqs and playing that never-ending game of "Would You Rather...?" in hopes that someday I'll come up with the best worst scenario. I don't even care if you catch me dancing in front of the mirror.
So if that's not enough for me to justify myself to myself, I don't know what is. I am not yet old enough for this to be any real disappointment; there isn't one bit of real pressure or strain.
All the married couples can do it every night. The mommies can hold their sweet babies and know they've truly created a miracle. The interns and research assistants can bust their asses to make someone else credible and in the process better their prospective futures at least twofold - at least.
And while they're doing that, I'm going to dance in the rain and then go write that poetry.
