Eleventh

I am drowning. I am drowning and I'm doing it to myself. Not in anything so literal as water, but in life I'm sure not keeping afloat. I procrastinate and I shuffle my feet [and my iPod] and I shrug at my lack of motivation until it's a problem. Until riding the motions and putting things off becomes an active issue because there is just no avoiding it anymore. It's in your fave, it's angry, it's here to collect.

I hate the end of the semester. It's always like this. I'm suddenly up to my eyes in work I could have and didn't finish a month ago, stuff I haven't even looked at twice. But if I had, I would have had time and gotten to finish it once instead of flailing about it in dismay. I need to shape up and I know it do. But it's never til the shape I'm in is actually a problem that I actually care, or pay attention.

They don't tell you about this when you're younger. They let you be naive. And clinging to that isn't a bad thing. But it's tough to get slapped in the face. What do we condition our children with? In all honesty, we've even tried to make a game out of it. Good going by the way Hasbro. The game of LIFE. Though I might not be one to talk, I honestly love the frakking board game. I've played the board and the online version countless times. But there's nothing real about it.

According to the game, you don't even exist until college, which is either skipped over completely or breezed through. Then it's off to the hard parts. Get a job, grab a few pay days in between while you spin the multi colored wheel. Then what? Unavoidably, you have to get married. And what a grand thing it is. Everyone, at the exact same stop in their 'life' takes a pause at the stop sign to have a lovely wedding, at which point you choose your very own blue or pink colored and shaped plastic piece! It's so romantic!

What it doesn't warn you about is that maybe you got off to a bad start. Or maybe you're getting married because you have a bun in the oven. That your dad, mom, or sister might not approve. Maybe they're bad for you, or you've nothing in common. Which is going to go over REALLY well since the only thing you do is spend all your time in the car together. Maybe you didn't actually get married til you were thirty five, or he's ten years older. They never mention that.

Then! You're off again. This time you go through a few more 'trials' before you come to another stop sign. Guess what that means! It's house buying time. Sure, you can pick whichever one you like, but once again a pivotal decision hangs on a multi colored wheel. it goes round and round, and it's going to tell you how much of that tiny, funny colored money is going to go to a piece of cardboard that signifies your ownership. But once again, they don't tell you. I mean, you have such a marvelous paycheck, there's no way that you'd ever be in debt. You have no mortgage, nothing of that sort to worry about. AND if you get insurance, well, you're just set forever. Because it's not like insurance people can be completely impossible or anything. Besides. You have to land on the square for anything to happen to your car or house, or else they will ABSOLUTELY last you for your whole life without ever failing you.

And from there you proceed. You go to the doctors, if you land on the square. You go to a charity gala or a police ball, if you land on the square. You only have kids if you land on the squares. And then, just like your significant piece of plastic, you spend all of your time in the car with them. They never mention that if those little blank plastic faces had mouths you'd want to rip them after after a bajillion chorus's of 'are we there yet?' in a sure to be nasally voice. No no. That's not mentioned.

In the end, even if you never landed on the right squares to have kids, you might still land on the greatest grandparent award one, and get a little extra cardboard piece. Because that's what it's all about. It's about the little tiles with all the money. It's about having a crappy job with a ridiculously amazing paycheck. It's not about your anniversaries, or kids birthdays, or being there when a friend needs it. None of that is relevant in a game. Instead of being friends with the other players, the only other people in this little world, you're all racing to the finish. Racing to getting old. Racing towards retirement, honestly towards death.

I mean, what? What IS that?! What does that say about the people who make games for children? What does that say about how we're conditioned, or how we're conditioning them? I still hate finals. I still hate cramming and getting lost and getting stuck. I'm terrified of moving forward but frustrated with staying still. And I'm at a loss.

But I'd never give it up so I could be dictated by a spinning rainbow wheel.