Plus One

There's a sinister hidden element to this whole going back to school adventure that I've hesitated to talk about, mainly because it was personal and felt necessary but also because I felt it would take what I had hoped would be a light-hearted, awww shucks, fish-out-of-water type recounting of my return to school and stain it with some dark and dirty realness. But it's here. And it's real. So here goes.

It's lonely. I'm lonely, rather. Or the process is a lonely one, and I am made lonely by it.

Or just plain I'm lonely. I'm lonely as hell.

At school, being more than a decade older than most of my classmates stopped being novel months ago. It's just plain alienating now. We're in the same place and doing the same sort of things but I'm just not there with them. They're still sorting through a number of things I've already tackled and managed and they're on their way to 100 or so mistakes that I've already made. Or something like that.

By that I mean I can't relate. I feel like I'm talking with my nephews and nieces.

It's unsettling when they talk about sex and beer and drugs. It's upsetting to hear them swear. Sometimes, I have to suppress an urge to correct them. And, while I'll admit that this says much more about me than it does about any of them, it is, nonetheless, a wedge between us.

At home, I've noticed a change as well. School work and other commitments have taken away the bulk of what was once 'free time'. I don't go anywhere. I don't do anything. I can't afford it.

I worry about the huge investment I'm making here and about the loans I'll have to pay off after I'm done adventuring. I worry about not having enough money for basic things like bread and eggs and gas and whiskey. I'm constantly broke or very much near broke. And, while by itself that's not an awful thing, it's certainly a thing that keeps me lonely. I don't go out because I can't go out. I can't afford it.

And it's not just because I can't afford it. I'm not invited out as often. Maybe people have taken the hint and stopped inviting me out. Maybe I'm turning down more invites than I suppose I am and this whole thing is of my own manufacturing. Either way, lonely.

I school. I school lots. And it's taxing. And I'm lonely. And this isn't an original complaint. And I get that. And that doesn't make it any less legitimate.

I didn't expect to be jealous of my friends going about their daily lives with 9 to 5's, but I am. I am jealous. Sure, there's something to be said about keeping your head up, your eyes on the prize, focusing on a tomorrow in which you'll be proud of what you've done, Drew! You'll be so very proud of what you've accomplished! And you'll serve as a model to your nephews and nieces! And you'll get a job that isn't awful! And the stars will align and the birds will sing and Baby Jesus will descend from heaven on a pair of handcrafted discount polyester wings to bestow fried pickles and honey mead upon thee!

But there's also something to be said about the honesty of the moment - the TRUTH of the moment, even. And, for now, it's just lonely.

It's just lonely as hell.

Herd

Day 7: We've only just begun the second week of classes and already the mobs in the lecture halls have thinned. Part of that is due to students dropping and switching courses, but another part of it is students just plain skipping class. If last semester is any indicator, the classes will be even more sparsely populated in the following weeks.

I mention this only to celebrate that I can find a seat in the front without having to get to class 10 minutes early. And to vent a little frustration at what I know will come next - students freaking out about midterms after only having been to a class or two subsequently dominating any and all review sessions with bullshit questions that could easily have been answered if they had just come to class instead of now taking away from legitimate questions and concerns of the people who made an effort to get out of bed and learn something.

You can't see it right now, but I'm shaking a cane in my knotted arthritic fist.

Get off my lawn, damn it!