Recently, I’ve been feeling this overwhelming sense of Nostalgia. Worsened by periods of stillness and the reminders that time has pushed forward despite It All. Relieved by a Tiredness So All-Consuming I can’t do anything but sleep.
Last night I was at an All Time Low/Mayday Parade concert, and the Nostalgia gripped me. I could feel it everywhere. I was happy, so happy, but I wanted to be back there, you know? I wanted to be coming home from a night of manhunt as a teenager, logging onto Myspace and seeing if my crush had posted a bulletin with a cryptic emo lyric. I wanted to be climbing out my window to meet my friends, equipped with vodka stolen from my parents in a water bottle and my vans with holes forming in the toes. I was so happy to hear Black Cat signing along to Dear Maria Count Me In, but I wanted to erase It All.
I just sometimes get the sense I made all the wrong turns. Which is an absolutely wild and beyond privileged thought, because I’m a medical student. I’m living The Dream. But, but, is The Dream mine? And, okay, the answer is yes (sorta yes, a forced, a coerced yes), I have made The Dream my own. The subspeciality I chose would for sure be emo approved (hint: it sort of gives The Mortician’s Daughter by BVB), and the path I am hoping to forge within the speciality honors my The Dream I left behind somewhere in one of the bushes I hid in during the aforementioned manhunt. Okay, but you’re wondering (no, you’re not, I’ll tell you anyway) what’s the wrong turn? Why are you complaining about The Dream when you’re going to be a doctor?
It’s just a feeling. It’s this ache in my chest when I write this. I don’t know where the wrong turn was, but I don’t know, man, I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be a National Geographic photographer. I wanted to be a botanist surrounded by green. I wanted to be a professional surfer. And this? It feels far from that. Growing up feels like being trapped in other people’s The Dream, watching other people live your The Dream. Standing in the crowd at an All Time Low concert, taking a long, hard look at yourself with the eyes of your 16-year-old self. It’s never moving to Portland and not eloping in Vegas because your fiancé said he needed a traditional wedding. It’s complaining about dumb things because all this is good. Right? All these things are Good. Right? It’s The Dream. You’re complaining because… you are pursuing a great career? You’re going to settle down in a nice neighborhood in some random state? You’re having a beautiful wedding? It’s dumb. It’s The Dream. I’m living The Dream.
And my 16-year-old self would call this The Prison that she saw suck the life out of her parents, push them out of the house, push them to the bar. And what’s fucked up? I get it. I have this god damn ache in my chest, and it’s because The Dream is just The Prison. My 16-year-old self saw it so clearly, but my 29-year-old self is too scared to rattle the chains. Because why are you complaining?
The Nostalgia will fade.
It All will be okay.
Just be happy the Tiredness So All-Consuming keeps you from thinking too hard.
This is all Good.
You’re living The Dream.
It’s The Dream so I’ll be grateful. So I’ll buy the house in the suburbs, and I won’t rattle the chains too hard. I’ll try not to think about how my dreams that weren’t practical, the ones I needed to give up to make a living. I’ll be grateful for what I have and ignore the ache in my chest. And maybe I’ll write on this blog sometimes.
Supplemental:
- Man and Wife, the Former (Financial Planning) Desaparecidos
- Man and Wife, the Latter (Damaged Goods) Desaparecidos
- A lifetime gets chalked up to an experience
- Coincidence. we are chained to the events
- That’s it
- Hole in One Desaparecidos
- You used to work your land, fed a thousand mouths
- Now you eat their shit for their money now
- Emptied your heart to fill your bank account
- Well I shouldn’t talk, I’m just the same
- Buy my records down at the corporate chain
- I tell myself I shouldn’t be afraid
- But I am!
- Adolescence made her an activist
- Now she’s the one who does all the lecturing
- “Oh they got their eighteen holes, should tell them to dig one more
- The dream is dead”
- The Mortician’s Daughter Black Veil Brides
- We booked our flight those years ago
- You said you loved me as you left me
- Regrets still haunt your saddened head
- But I promised you that I will see you
- Somewhere in Neverland All Time Low
- Say goodbye to the halls and the classes
- Say hello to a job and the taxes
- The weekends with old friends spilling into 9 to 5 routine
- Tell me how you feel over and done with
- Like your life is a map with no compass to guide,
- At the bar drinkin’ way too much
- We sing along to “Forever Young”.
- So here we go again
- Wishin’ we could start again
Am I a...? 
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