Well, I asked for it.I wanted the opportunity... nay... the PRIVILEGE to be a working man with a regular and steady job requiring normal sleep hours and an 8-hour or more work day. I demanded money dollars for my productivity. I craved the sumptuous taste of adulthood and responsibility.
I got what I wanted and came to a conclusion: Adulthood Sucks!
Now don't get me wrong - I'm loving my chosen field. There's never a dull moment when you're teaching. As indicated in previous posts, the adolescent mind constantly invents new ways to create incidents that will entertain and enthrall my friends and family. But this daily 5:30 A.M wake-up call is for the goddamn birds. And not just the normal birds either - like a fucking owl or something. Battling my way across the Parkway every morning with the other working masses only hammers home just how much growing up will bring on pain and misery.
Know what was great? Waking up at 10:30 every morning last semester. Riding my bike to the candy store to buy Ring Pops because I had nothing better to do at age 8. Spending an entire evening pouring salt on slugs on the front stoop just to watch them shrivel. Now the only thing shriveling is my sleep time.
To be fair, this semester is particularly unpleasant. Much as I love my student teaching placement, I'm beat when I get done there. When you're teaching, you have to constantly be in teaching mode, and that constant act is exhausting. A lot of people don't realize that. And when 2:30 rolls around, I want to watch cartoons, eat a fudgesicle, and take a nap (the pleasures in life don't change after age 4). But do I get to do this? Hell no! I have to make my way to my grad school classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. By the time I get home, I've had a 15 hour day. The last time I did something for 15 hours straight, I was dumping talcum powder into my pants for the next three days.
I don't write this for the pity (though it's always nice). This is a meditation on the working life that I write for all of you long-suffering folks out there who haven't seen the sun outside of your job site in 8 months. For years I both envied you and mocked you. Now I do neither. I feel your pain and hereby withdraw my objections to your constant and increasingly fervent requests for hard liquor and your random outbursts of frustration. Cries of "WHY GOD, WHY!??" will no longer go ignored or scoffed at.
Curse you, irony!! You've fooled me once again!
-----------------------------
"I don't want to grow up 'cause if I did, I wouldn't be a Toys R' Us kid."
5 comments:
Until you add a kid to that mix, you still don't really know what it feels like.
:p
Yeah, I figured I need offspring, a house payment, a spouse, a mountain of bills, a minor but irritating chronic illness, and at least 28 holiday obligations before I really feel the crunch of adulthood...
But goddamn it!! I miss my sleep!!
I cannot imagine starting a teaching job and coming home to a family.
I'm glad I'm not married or have kids at this point in my life. I need to get used to my career.
When I do, though, I fear two things: 1. teaching all day while pregnant and 2. losing sleep to tend to my offspring while having to deal with other people's kids the next morning
Did I forget to tell you how happy I am being single??
Such are the dilemmas of the long-suffering schoolteacher. But teenagers function adequately to discourage pregnancy.
sounds like parents basement of solitude ain't so bad
Post a Comment