Dishes
I own dishes.
My God,
I own dishes.
How did I get here?
When did this happen?
Who have I become??
Do you remember?
Do you remember the days when we wanted to grow up?
When we were young we believed we would become superheroes?
School used to be a joke and adults were concerned about our play.
They worried that we were not playing enough.
Do you remember when every day, we were taught what we need to know as a grown up?
Do you?
Now, it is different, we are “grown up”.
Now, it is taxes. The daily cost for being permitted life in this world.
Student loans if you want to “get ahead”.
We start to settle for less than what we think we deserve in exchange for a wage.
We have been taught that making a living is more important than being Alive.
School requires most of our time and energy.
They are worried that we are not working hard enough.
We need to grow up.
It is more difficult to get a job if there are gaps on our resumes.
But we do not have the opportunity to tell them about all the experience we gained
In those gaps.
We are those experiences, and we display them proudly in our character
As a centerpiece on a coffee table that is an entire story in and of itself, yet we cannot tell it.
We cannot describe in a job application how much we have learned about life
And how to see through different lenses
And what it feels like to get lost in a sunrise with people you met only the night before.
They want experience; and that overflows within us. All of us.
But our kind of experience does not make getting a job more likely.
I was unaware that happiness would need to be sacrificed for responsibility.
I was told play and loving life were just about the most important things I could do in life.
So I kept playing, even after the word “adult” was tattooed across my forehead in bold.
I used to sleep in parking lots and tents and on stranger’s couches.
I lived for a living.
But now, here I am, acting my age.
Whatever that means.
I have a busy schedule
I check both my e-mail accounts ten times a day.
I own dishes.
I do not know if I want them.