Chocolate Existentialism

Today was just one of those days where you step back, take into account everything you are and think, "Good God, I have wasted my life". I have friends who are teaching overseas, starting companies--hell, starting families and here I am stuck in neutral. I always talk myself down from these ledges of self-deprication but today it was just a little bit harder. My usual cliche parade in the vein of "Not everyone can be in the parade Jamie, some of us have to applaud as it makes its way down the road" wasn't enough. Even the guilt-trip of "You have a job, a roof over your head, family, friends..etc. so what are you bitching about?" wasn't cutting it. Because in the end life has turned out to be the test I tell everyone I think I failed.

When asked how I did after an exam, or how well I think I did on a paper I would always respond with a false sense of self-degredation. Even if I thought I rocked the shit out of a comparative essay and my Prof would be a fool to give me anything but an A, I would always use words like "okay" or "rush-job" or "thrown together" so if the results were not what I'd hoped I could always claim I saw it coming, even if inside I was terribly dissapointed. Life, or how I saw life today, was that paper coming back with a "Low D - see me after class". Because regardless of how much I feigned not caring or not really being engaged in it, it hurts to be told what you have created isn't particularly special, and today I realized that in many ways, I am not special, and that realization can be very saddening.

I wallowed in my pity party for one for most of the day until I bought a "Cadbury Fruit & Nut" on my break. I have been told it is old man chocolate and Earl mocks me every time I buy it but today it made things seem better somehow. It could have been the endorphins released by all that wonderful caffeine or the fact I mentally equate chocolate with childhood but by the time I had finished things didn't seem as bad: I work with people I really like. I can always rely on friends to make fun of me for loving old man snacks. I am healthy; albeit a bit on the chunky side, but healthy none-the-less. I have a whole bunch of years ahead of me, and in them I can see the world, I can go furniture shopping, I can be in a pie-eating contest, go scuba-diving, sleep-in on countless Sundays, meet new people, eat more chocolate. Life ain't so bad. I may not be doing anything all that special, but my collection of everyday stuff is pretty good so far. It's not like we can all be in the parade, some of us have to applaud as it makes its way down the road.