nobody ever said shit was going to be easy.

i'm totally aware of this. and i'm aware that i run the risk of pushing the "blistering" thing a little too far, portraying myself as some sort of whining emo beast who thinks the world owes her something. (not the case. i don't own a pair of chucks, i don't have assymetrical hair and i'm not so sure i even like death cab.) i hate that sort of thing.

really all i want out of adult life is a little bit of respect.

i'm twenty-five now, and i've done my time. i've played the precocious, wise-cracking vessel of potential role. i was a corner store rebel for awhile. then i threw that aside to be the weathered college droput almost but not quite hipster enough to be in the middle of the scene, though i played on the fringes for a few years. i drank too much, tried some things that would have been better left untouched, frittered away the days and still managed to escape without having made too many major mistakes (and the ones i did make have since been fixed, easily at that.)

none of those shoes really fit well, and i had a hard time seeing in the dark and smokey clubs.

i've never felt so much like myself as i do at this moment -- a college degree in hand, umpteen professional and semi-professional projects, volunteer opportunities and such. more importantly, i'm happy more than seventy-five percent of the time.

so why is it that i feel sometimes that i still haven't completely delivered? and why the hell do i care if i've let people down anyhow?

it's possible i'm hardwired to consider the larger implications and the oh-so-important other people's feelings factor. that personality tendency is one of the reasons i chose my career, and why i'm good at it. it's also possible that i'm impossible to please and am destined to replay every choice i make on the jumbotron in my head, fretting over the unchosen pages of my choose your own adventure story. i'm relentlessly anal retentive like that.

somehow i still feel that on a certain level i'm expected to be frivilous, despite my own distaste for being that way. that gets me respect from my friends close to forty, my friends my own age not so much. and i have enough flavor of immaturity to feel like i'm missing something even though i'm fairly certain i'm not, because when i show up i wind up being irritated by some drunkard or attracting a herd of inappropriate mini-morrisseys.

it's walking a fine line between responsibility and pleasure in life; i'm not always convinced i'm doing so well.