Friday, January 20, 2006

The Space Between

You always know it's going to be a good day when the first song you hear on the radio is Dave Matthews...

I'm not sure what Dave really intended The Space Between to be about, but I'm convinced I have read into it way too much as I have now applied the song to my life. The other day I caught myself thinking "Wow, I can't wait until January is over." After a little bit I felt some guilt for that thought, because living life waiting for something better to come along isn't really a quality way of doing things. How many things do I miss, how many things do I not enjoy to their fullest because something in my life is making me wish I could skip over a whole section of my existence to six months from now. I don't believe in the quarter life crisis theory anymore. I thought I did for a little while, but I realize now it was just a lame justification for a situation I had total control over but was too lazy to do anything about. I guess being a twentysomething in today's society is one big space between, but that space is what makes us the functioning members of society we always wanted to be. Everyone I know who I've talked to about this feels like we're in some kind of holding pattern. We're waiting for something to happen, but we don't know what. Who knows, maybe this is the kind of uncertainty we're going to feel for the rest of our lives. I haven't really broached the subject with anyone older than 28, so I can't be sure. Maybe at our age it's harder because we've been programmed to expect climax and conclusion. We waited for years to graduate grade school and get to junior high, then high school, our first cars, proms, graduation, and then college.... internships, legally buying a beer with our real id's, graduation, the first real job.... and after all that, what? There's sort of a drop off of expectation and at that point they suddenly strip us naked, blindfold us and throw us into traffic and say "Have a great time! These are the best years of your life!" No wonder so many of us spend the first few years flailing around bars to try and make sense of it all. Or maybe that's just narcissism. But that's another topic for another day.