Twenty-Two For a Moment

Today is the first day of my twenty-second year. I've no recollection of specific predictions I made as to where I'd be by now, but I have full confidence I'm currently short of any loose goals. My current assets pretty much amount to a $10,000 car I haven't made any payments on yet, $40,000 in student loan debt that I haven't gotten a degree for yet, a couple of maxed out credit cards, a camera, a bicycle, a bank account with -$168.95, and the miscelaneous valueless odds and ends one collects over 22 years in America. I suppose my only possessions of value are my Nikon and my Trek, but they're worth far less than I owe and I rely on them pretty heavily.

I've known most of my current aquaintances for most or all of my life, though those who know me best I met only a few months ago, and like a despairing Dostoevsky protagonist, I'm not really well known by anyone. And in that sense, I find myself curiously and starkly alone, although people don't seem to understand.

As time continues to tic the clock and fall off the calendar, the only things really changing for me are how much money I owe, how many hours I have to work to pay bills (despite the number of hours my employer can afford me for not changing), and how much hair I'm missing. The number of friends I have seems to remain about the same as each time I convince one person I'm tolerable, another is offended and shuns me. I keep not meeting 'the one' or, really, anyone close. Accordingly, I naturally keep trying to convince ones, other than 'the' one, that ... well, you get the picture. I'm not under some illusary impression that by age 22 I should be married, but I'm having serious doubts that a girl who would actually work with my personality is actually out there. But don't tell the girls I've tried courting that I admit that.

There are, of course, all the reasons I should never complain about anything. I have a decent, fully functional car. I at least am in school, even if the job market values the degree I'm pursuing less than a CDL. I at least have a job, even if they can't afford to give me enough hours to pay bills and eat 2+ meals a day. Or fruit and vegitables. I have pretty much my entire family alive and healthy, and I'm healthy enough that my separated shoulder hasn't even kept me from moving furniture, by myself, and I've not been what you could call "sick" in ... maybe 7 years? Healthy enough to donate blood today, which I've been doing every 28 days since learning I could do that more often and it potentially saves more lives than whole blood, which I'd been donating every 8 weeks or so until then, never missing due to illness since I started at age 16.

But right now I have 191 more years I've lived than dollars in liquid assets. I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to start making car payments in a couple weeks, let alone insurance payments. I'm alone in a very real way, and I'm not really the kind of person that let's people close to me. I let people think they know me, but ultimately, they can't. And I think that's going to make me stay alone for a long time.

It was once written by a man sharing with me, kind of, a first name:

²My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

³Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

⁴But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

I'm odd enough to take heed and rejoice in my trials and struggles.

The more I let myself feel down, the more I feel like I'm innocent of other people's suffering. So the more I get down on my situation, the better I feel in a weird way. Hopefully this will all just make me stronger. Hopefully it gets worse, so I actually have something to complain about, so I can someday have the character of someone like my grandfather, whose memories aren't all fond, but who will eventually leave the world, better than if it had missed him.

I have this strange feeling I'll be the only person to ever read this...