What the world owes me

I think I figured out what it means to be an adult.

It has nothing to do with physical development or financial independence.

It is not about age or the acquisition of knowledge. It is the total acceptance of one’s circumstances and the complete understanding that the world owes you nothing.

There are 78-year-olds who are not yet adults, and 17-year-olds who are. The hopeless might be, and the hopeful might not. I am not an adult yet, but I’m getting there.I think what has kept me from reaching adulthood is a story.

I’ve seen and read so much that I have become confused. My motivations are misguided and my desires are cinematic.A story can paint the truth a pretty color.

If a subject is written about, its significance is already heightened because whatever the subject of that story is, it was worth writing about in the first place.

The subject’s value is further legitimized by an audience’s acceptance of the story, and eventually, its seamless inclusion into popular culture.

Death becomes part of a narrative and thus becomes special. Tragedy can be revered. Drama is applauded.

If the boy does not get the girl, well then that’s the way it’s supposed to be, and if the hero ends up where he began, he’s still a hero.I know my life is not part of a story.

There is no fade in on a kid in the big city. No grand reuniting. No kisses in the rain.

Stories are a part of my life, not the other way around. But still I exist, yearning for something that will not come.  There are certain things I want in life, or maybe I expect them; perhaps I can’t even tell the difference.
 
I have been loved, but I want it to last. I have been lonely, but I want that loneliness to mean something.

Heartache is fine if you write songs about it. Recklessness is alright if it helps regain what you lost.Sometimes I’ll walk to class and hope my starry eyed bashfulness and oversized sweater will attract the attention of a pretty girl.

Maybe she will see something different and beautiful in me. Perhaps I will discover the same in her.

Sometimes I’ll imagine that by renouncing all hope and taking a drunken sabbatical, I’ll find what I was looking for.

But these are fanciful ambitions. I’m not relying on my own volition, but that of some mythical, cinephilic narrator.

I am not an adult yet because I still fantasize. I still want to believe that because I’m a good person, and life might just work out as I wish it would.

But this isn’t healthy. If I have any potential, I am letting it stagnate. My eyes wander when they should be fixed.

I look at myself as a character, not an individual. I’ll still read books and watch films, and maybe I’ll never change.

They should make a movie about that.      



E-mail: joskraus@indiana.edu