This last break I came home for Christmas and the New Year. It is now a week and a half into break, and I’ve noticed a disturbing trend happening. I stay up until 5 or 6 in the morning and try to go to sleep, soon after waking back up. I do not wake up after three and four hour refreshing naps, but rather 5 minute respites in bed. My mind is racing a hundred miles an hour about all the things I have to do, how I’m unhappy at college, why Lancaster is good and bad, and about the ever-quickening black hole approaching that is my future. Millencolin said it best when they sung “I’m Twenty-Two, No Clue What I’m Supposed To Do”. I’m now at 22 and I honestly do not have much in the way of good role models. Sure, a few of my acquaintances from DePauw days are currently doing graduate stuff (Andie and Nathan are the two that come to mind quickly), but the vast majority of those individuals are doing little else besides working the normal grind. The case is nearly the same for those people I knew from Lancaster High; only a very few (Byron, Ben, and Christie) out of the hundreds of people that graduated are actually doing anything besides working an 8 to 5.

A few days after coming home for break, I had my friend Shayne (of the Bloody Irish Boys) take me up to see eir band practice. For those who are not aware, Shayne has eir shit together, selling hundreds of CDs and being begged on all sides to play concerts and other venues. Each time I come home, ey has a better and better future laid out before eir. Last time, the Bloody Irish Boys were approached by SOS Records, a major punk label. This go around, ey had accumulated nearly a full band and seemed to be ready to play shows in the next few months. Compare that success with your writer, who was sitting there the entire night swilling 40s and watching TV. This comparison only gets worse; we stayed over at eir accordionist Aaron’s house in a nice section of Columbus, Ohio. Turns out that Aaron is making an incredibly nice living out of a two year degree from Devry, working IT support. Compare this again with your humble writer, who was blasted our of eir gourd.

This is not to say that my life is bad in any sense, though. I learned at that same party previously mentioned that I was elected to receive a tuition waiver and a $1000/month stipend for my graduate school, should I decide to work 20 hours a week. Add that to successfully being able to show myself worthy of a contract release, and moving out to a much cheaper apartment and things would seem to be going well for yours truly. Still, I find myself unable to sleep unless I wear myself out, staying up until 11 or noon only to sleep until 6 or 7 P.M. What is my major malfunction, why exactly can I just not be happy with how my life has turned out to this point?

This piece follows from this new-found tendency to stay up to absurd periods of the night; it is now nearly 6 A.M. as I commit this writing to Word. There are a few reasons I can come up with for this fucked-up sleeping schedule, and looking at them it becomes pretty clear that many of them are not going to change in the immediate future. First off, the reason why I was allowed out of my housing contract – my parents’ financial troubles – have actually become greater as this year has worn on. My sister started college for the first time this fall; the job market is so poor that ey has not been able to find a job yet, and the winter quarter is going to begin soon. The only person that is not family in Lancaster that I honestly care about has been having problems staying away from bad influences after a few months in rehab. Contrary to the rosy picture I’ve put out, I honestly only have a small number of friends currently up at Kent State, and that number is expected to decrease as at least two are graduating next semester. It hurts that I have the ability to actually go out and get an education – a luxury – when all the people I love have to work full (or nearly) full time jobs and continually worry whether they will be able to pay their next bill.

I am unsure exactly how long I have at Kent State; I believe that the Ph.D. program there is four years, but I have three credits above where I should be at this point. One can take up to 16 credits without incurring anything extra in the way of fees from the University, but the Political Science department only requires 9 credits to be considered a full-time student. I’ve taken 12 credits this last semester and plan to take as many extra credits as possible to ensure that I can get out with a Ph.D. as soon as possible. I want to be able to actually help my parents, my sister, and my friends out with finances; I know that right now I am a drain on their cash flow.

This problem is not as simple as just being a burden financially; the sad fact is that I still have no clue how to drive. I had screwed-up priorities in those halcyon Junior year days when everyone else was learning how to drive, and just was not able (due to work, booking, and zine schedules) to pull things together. I need to learn how to drive for so many different reasons, and it is becoming increasingly more absurd to expect that I will have a way home each time that I want to go. I missed out on a once in a lifetime event – the 2005 Philadelphia Zine Festival (which included a show nearby with the Subhumans and Leftover Crack) – because I had no clue how to drive, and I’ve pissed away so much in the way of days and money because I’ve had to work around schedules and pay individuals and Greyhound cash to get where I needed to go. Honestly, if I stick with my goal of wanting to teach at a college, it is simply not feasible to think that I could conceivably work my magic and show up to five or ten different interviews without the ability to drive.

Why exactly did I write this piece? I could say “to complain” but that just not ring right in my ears. I would have to say that I wrote this on this early December morning not because I wanted to complain, but rather lay out some sort of roadmap for the next few months of my life. I want to learn how to drive; I think (but am not sure) that my credit is enough to buy a decent car. I am going to have to deal with a lack of public transit for the first half of January (the system does not re-open until second semester), but should be able to get around with the bike (which has a nice new seat for my fat ass, thanks to the parents). I still have no clue on what I will do over the course of summer, but would really like to find a way down for a week or two. Hell, even with gas prices being over two dollars (ohiogasprices.com quotes Lancaster being at about 2.22 and Akron at about 2.09), I believe that I could conceivably knock off some Friday or Monday and just visit with the family and the people of Lancaster.

Things are looking up, this fact is true for most of the individuals in my life. I still remember a commercial from my childhood that said “if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything”. I stand by that motto; everything will look up given time. What happens to be the one caveat in that phrase is that “putting your mind to it” means hard, transformative work of some sort. This is not the same for everyone, nor is it as easy for all groups of society to succeed. I know what I need to do to succeed; whether I will have the willpower and drive spread out over the next five years is the biggest question surrounding me. I’m tired; not tired in body, but just weary in spirit; this break has (for the most part) replaced the mania of the 77-page 72-hour finals period, but it has given my brain time to really confront issues that imbue me with dread in a much more sinister way than papers that are due by 5PM on a Thursday.

[JMcQ]