I had plans. Dreams. I was going to go places. Literally and metaphorically.
But I got a job when school finished. A crappy one. Strictly short term. Just to pay for beer. For cd’s. For a PlayStation. A couple of nice outfits to wear when out clubbing.
I put the dreams, the plans, on hold for a while.
And then I moved out of home, because who wants to be the loser still living with their parents at twenty two? So I took a promotion to cover the rent and the bills. I stopped being a wisecracking smartass and learned to say ‘yes sir’ when the boss spoke.
Then there was a girl and things got complicated. Rent became a mortgage. Kids appeared. There was child care. School fees. College funds. Birthday parties. There was… Christ I only have two hundred words I couldn’t begin to cover it all.
So, promotion after promotion and the years simply melted away
The dreams didn’t though, they were always there, sometimes buried deep but never gone.
‘I’m just on hold,’ I’d tell myself. ‘This is just stuff that has to be done, real life will start soon enough. I’m just on hold.’
Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay