Dynamic & Non Retarded

After my post yesterday I re-read the quote by Chuck Klosterman, and found myself contemplating the words, "dynamic, non retarded Americans". Once upon a time I believed myself to be a member of this category. In fact, I believed it so strongly that it may have been the only thing I truly believed about myself. I was in fact, an interesting, dynamic person with an exceptional character and above average intelligence... I was also 17.

This feeling of being worth talking to, and as though I had something to say that might interest others, and that I was somehow more intelligent that the majority of those around me lasted until around age 24. At this point, I realized I will never again be 17. I will never have my 17 year old body again, I will never believe I am the most interesting person I know, and I will never again feel more intelligent or fun than anyone else. As time has progressed, I have come to realize, now 28, that I am in fact, boring and just like everyone else.

While I still feel like I'm worthy of friendships and somewhat interesting conversations, I have not been told , " Talking to you is like a scene from an independent film" for a long time. Those days of such odd, yet somehow more meaningful compliments have passed. I am old, and I am boring and I have nothing of interest to say.

I have done interesting things, mostly in my youth. I have travelled. I bought new heels in Paris and wore them as I climbed the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. I wandered around Versailles and imagined being Marie Antoinette, going mad and dressing up her sheep. I bought a knife in Toledo and imagined what my life would consist of if I actually lived in Madrid. I have crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and have fallen asleep on the beach in Ocean City. I like things. I love food, and will try anything once. I enjoy good restaurants and well.. let's face it, if you know me you know I can't live without chili cheese fries. I love reading. I have read all the classics, and enjoyed them. Though my other English studies counterparts will disagree when I explain that I hate the Bronte sisters with a passion. I read interesting literature and even strange dark graphic novels. I dyed my hair with streaks of red. I had a "suicidal" (I need attention) phase when I was 13. ( who didn't) I have partied, drinking insane amounts, until I have passed out and built my tolerance to the superhuman level. I have loved. I have loved and lost and I have loved again. I have seen a ghost, and been in a fight. I have done interesting things. Right?

No longer. Now I am just boring and that's it. What am I supposed to do as an adult? I may have used up all my interesting thoughts while I was sure I would never run out. I wrote a book once. I finished it, then lost it. I wrote brilliant things for my senior thesis. I used to have a million friends, more than my AOL IM would allow, and I knew them all in person. I used to correspond with my favorite artist. ( Local to Cleveland, Derek Hess, the print I want is pictured above) Now, nothing. NOTHING. I work, and talk to Mr. Pessimistic and watch television.

I wish I was young and interesting again.

A.

(reply by Mr. Pessimistic)

You gotta' understand that from seventeen to twenty-two or whatever, twixters assume everyone cares about them, or thinks they're interesting, but in all actuality, no one does. From those ages, most assume that since they're considered an adult, and a young adult, that they've got some insightful thing going on, and that they've got some eventful, and life changing thing inhead of them which older adults have already gone through, but they want to believe that it's going to be different and more special than anyone elses, and that they're some kind of hub for those elders to drop their boring, but flattering advice on.
Then they'll turn twenty-eight and realize that they had higher expectations of what was to come, and have been vacuumed into the mundane and boring existence everyone else is in, only to reflect on what they thought of themselves, and realize that they're just like everyone else.. on the road to some life binding ceremony, and a constant and mounting pile of unpaid bills. What one would think is the awestruck interest in the eyes of someone looking at them when they're twenty-something, is just them thinking to themselves "that reminds me of me at that age" or "I was there once, I could relate to that exactly" but it's not bad, it's just that you will have become what everyone else has become, nothing extravagant, but nothing beyond the realm of comfortable mediocrity.

D.