To be fair, I don't think anyone would describe me as a hopeful person. I'm a realist, though some may say a generally glass-half-empty kind of gal, who watches too many depressing apocalyptic documentaries and who worries about things like plastics, nuclear waste, Helvetica, crude oil, God, corporate greed, naked short selling, the degeneration of the English language, and the human incapacity for tolerance. I do not, however, worry about suicide. Life, sacred, generally, yes. But it's a choice and it's the right choice for some people.
So, given that I'm a *ahem* realist who doesn't condemn suicide, why am I still here on this bleak rock? I don't know. How can I still wake up and believe that this will be the year of world peace? That this year I will get a paycheck with my name on it and it will be for acting in some film or play? How can I believe that this year will be the year I can buy a reliable car, or visit my family, or not worry about being homeless? I don't know. How do any of us continue to do this every day?
About a month ago, I was facing the very real scenario of being homeless. It came about because I was chasing the old acting dream. Yes, I didn't work for two months so that I could take a non-paying starring role in a local feature film while concurrently going to school full time and also starring in a non-paying play. I didn't sleep much those two months.
Anyhow, I sold everything of value to try and pay my rent in the aftermath. Everyone I knew was broke so, resigned, I started planning my next survival strategy. Instead of spending my money on rent, I would buy a camper top for the old gas-guzzling-cracked-windshield-genie-laden-bald-tired pickup truck I own. I would park it in a friendly neighborhood and put my mattress in the back. There would be just enough room for a suitcase and maybe my school books and every blanket I own in order to brave the winter in Boulder. I would actually try not to die of exposure, even if I had nothing to live for. I would pack everything else into storage and get a cheap gym membership so I could still shower (and stay fit!--classy!). In my mind's eye, this didn't seem horrible. When this didn't seem horrible, I began to wonder what was wrong with me.
The truth is, I am a pretty joyful realist. That joy didn't come without my fair share of heartache and depression over the years, but maybe it means I actually learned something in my twenties. Maybe I learned that life really is an adventure and that the cliche is true: this too shall pass. And it did, for now. Sure, I may be on a strict diet of ramen noodles and Cool Whip for the next six months and I almost certainly can't afford new underwear until I'm thirty-five, but I'm livin' the dream, yo.
Maybe attitude really is everything.
Or maybe, when they tell you in school that you have to risk everything for your dreams, they don't really mean it, kids. Tony Robinson will try to tell you that will power will get you everything and The Secret will assure you that you just have to 'want it bad enough', but the ugly truth is that unless you have a trust fund or you are extraordinarily pretty, you will end up bankrupt and homeless.
At least if you quit early you stand a very reasonable chance of obtaining a couch that isn't a futon before you're thirty. And, you'll be able to buy enough booze to dull the pain of living a life of broken dreams and second-best.
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