Despite being a legal adult, I’m still dependent on my family for taking care of the taxes — the same way I can be dependent on my family’s medical insurance until age 26 (thanks Obama!).
It’s still socially acceptable as a third-year university student to be dependent on parents or family members for financial support (especially when you’ve entered university straight out of high school). I am lucky. Many don’t have that extra layer of cushioning.
But cushioning or not — after graduation, I’d better get my crap in order.
Family Name: _________________
First Name: ___________________
Phone Number: (___) ___-____
Here’s an interesting way to see who you are closest to. When you’re foaming at the mouth, who would you like to know about it first? Easy when you’re a child and can just write down your parents. But what happens when they aren’t around, and the closest friends you’ve made have all gone their separate ways?
Even more fascinating is who would put you on their form.
Hannah wanted some bananas for banana bread, and I told her I had a couple to spare. They were a bit brown though.
The bananas weren’t rotten. They tasted fine earlier in the morning with my oatmeal, and they tasted fine earlier in the afternoon with my peanut butter sandwich, but they were brown and mushy enough for me to think twice about offering them to someone else. Good neighbors don’t give other good neighbors rotten crap, right? Would giving someone else a rotten banana suggest that I’m a rotten person myself? I show her the bananas.
@ the faculty club in UCSD, where twice a quarter they host a guest speaker or panel to talk about interesting stuff:
I hid behind the food table instead of walking up to the speaker. That usually doesn’t happen, but this guy was one of those hot shots in the design community, and the people walking up to him were also hot shots in their fields.
Or at least that was the assumption I made. They were old and had white hair.
I wasn’t hungry, but the plate gave me a chance to hold something so I wouldn’t fidget, and the food gave me a distraction, so I wouldn’t have to focus on how I was chumping out and watching the world pass on by.
Up comes a man in a green collared shirt. About thirty years older, slightly balding. He was the only other guy eating the snacks on the table.
“Hey, go ask him a question.”
I tell him I didn’t know what to say, that he’s already got enough people kissing his ass and wanting something from him. I made all sorts of rationalizations, but really I was just scared and intimidated. Here are all these professionals lining up to speak to him. Who the hell am I? What would I be able to offer?
He tells me: “You know, he’s a human being, too. And he likes being recognized and knowing that his talk made a difference. Go talk to him and make a comment about something he said.”
He offered a handshake, then left for the parking lot. To this day I have no idea who he is.
~
~
Two slices of flatbread later, I lined up. I even wrote down a question in my notebook, for when I would forget in the ten meters separating the speaker, me, and every other person wanting to speak with the speaker in-between.
But I wouldn’t need to look at the notebook. A man in a suit ushered the speaker away.
The guy to the right pulled out his phone and pointed it outside the window. The guy to the left did the same. What are they looking at? Certainly not at the books laid out in front of them.
It’s like going on fifty first dates within a single morning. You’re unemployed (lonely), inexperienced (clumsy in the sack and unsure of what you want), and desperate for approval.
Please love me! you say as you hand out that résumé. Tell me that I’m wanted and needed, and that I’m not like the others. Tell me that I’m not a waste of space, and that the fancy slip of paper with my name on it actually means something.
I kept the shorts and sandals at home and remembered to shave.
–
–
Up to the first company I go. The recruiter’s wearing a shiny purple ribbon, with “ALUMNI” embroidered in gold. It’s like he’s saying hey, I’ve been in your shoes before. He speaks first.
“So, tell me what you do.”
I tell him. Thirty seconds, tops.
“Cool, we’ll put your résumé into the system.” He opens his hand for the handshake, but by the time our hands meet he’s already looking over my shoulder.
Someone was telling me that they read over two full-fledged books a week while juggling their own start-up venture and an undergraduate computer science workload. I felt like a chump sitting next to him. Is that even possible? I asked.
“Sure, I just make time for it.”
Whether or not he was exaggerating about his reading pace is beside the point. Reading is not a competition, despite my first desire to match his pace just to prove that, hey, I am productive and smart and worldly, too. Funny how envy and competition work, even for someone who identifies himself as not being overly competitive. Sometimes I wonder if I’m kidding myself.
There is something to be said about having priorities in life though, and whether or not your current actions match those priorities. I tell people reading is important to me, and that I enjoy it (and I do), so why wasn’t I dedicating more time to it?
“I don’t have time for it” is not a legitimate excuse. Everybody has 24 hours in a day. How you choose to spend that time speaks volumes about what is important to you — more than any words can do. It’s why neglectful parents have such trouble reconnecting with their children in adulthood. “If you’d loved me so much, why didn’t you spend any time with me?”
For them, it is too late — the damage stays. The possibility of death may speed the healing process, but they’ll never be able to recover the lost years and the pain it caused.
But I don’t think it’s too late for reading.
–
–
My father likes to tell me about his college days (“some of the best years of my life”), and how he juggled 21+ units (a lot) of engineering coursework as an international student to save his own father money for tuition, all while dating Mom at the same time. Every night he would read for at least fifteen minutes before going to bed. The only condition for proper reading material? Nothing related to classwork.
The more he read, the more interested he became in the world (and curiously enough, the more interesting he became himself). The more he read, the less shy he became in talking with other people. And the more ideas he exposed himself to, the more he had to share.
~
The writer has done her part. All you have to do is open the book and be open to what she has to say. Who knows, maybe you’ll have some words of your own to give.
Nich would leave for California in several hours, but not without some parting words and hugs for everyone. We didn’t know each other well, but he hugged me anyway and said: “Wesley, you are the most consistent person I’ve ever met.”
What’s that even supposed to mean? I never asked him, but eight months later I still remember this. Now I have to project my own meanings and interpretations onto his words. Is consistency a nice way of saying that you’re predictable? Boring? Or mature and emotionally stable? Is this too far back in the past to bring up in casual conversation?
Oh well. I may never know what he meant at that moment.
(Just a thought as I wait for the 202 bus to the grocery store in La Jolla Village Square)
