Music in the dark

Jake's asleep. It seems very peaceful in this apartment with no overhead lights on, the cats asleep on the couch beside me, mellow music turned low, barely audible over the rhythmic sound of my fingers across the keys... just me and my laptop in a silent apartment. These late hours are the most sacred ones. When everyone else is asleep, there's no one around to impress, to pay attention to. I can get lost in my own thoughts, nothing to distract me. For the hundredth time I toy with questions about my future. What do I want to be when I grow up? Am I already grown up? Should I be disappointed in myself for the way I'm living my life? Should I be striving for more? Or would it be ok if I just lived this life for a bit while I'm still young enough to be carefree? My mind chases itself in circles of speculation and "what if" scenarios.

Funny thing is... I just tried to start typing "I'm so happy with my life right now," but I can't seem to make it ring true. I'm not necessarily unhappy, but I'm certainly bored. I don't have many close friends, my job is a complete dead end, I'm not pursuing any higher education, I'm not a parent or spouse... the only dependents of mine are the furry, four-legged kind. So what now? Where do I go from here? I don't know the answer to my own question, but I do know that this isn't it. This is not the climax of my plot line. I know there is more that is well within my reach, but I've yet to uncover the motive to reach for it in the first place. Does that make me a typical American? Too lazy to do what would come easily? Or does that make me very un-American, that I'm not driven to achieve the American dream that is sewn into my genes? Either way, I'm a 21 year old girl who waits tables for a living but breezed onto the Dean's list in all 3 semesters of college I completed... I didn't drop out because I was lazy, I dropped out because my life fell apart, and though I keep telling myself that I've gotten it all back together... is that really true? I seem to have stumbled along the way and dropped my ambition. I wanted to be a journalist, a reporter... I wanted to have my eyes in ears in all the best places. But now, waiting tables for the rest of my life doesn't sound quite as bad as it used to. I'm a little scared.

How many people lose themselves in a time of crisis and never really recover? But then one could argue that people are evolving all the time and no one can ever find themselves because it's impossible to lose onesself in the first place. I cringe to think anyone would accuse me of quoting Ke$ha but, alas, I must.

We are who we are.