Once upon a time I was a highly motivated A grade, type-A student who had a very admirable life plan and absolutely no spare time. Now I have two degrees, an extensive knowledge of post-modern theorists and no clue about how to proceed. Usually I start with a leisurely breakfast.
John Mayer called it a quarter life crisis, John Lennon put it better when he said “Life is what happens when you're making other plans.” I don't think much of John Mayer and don't what to rely on cliches. I do, however, think there is a rut that I fell into sometime after returning from an overseas internship, somewhere before starting the rest of my life.
I surfaced from this decline in motivation, style, and general well-being to find myself in high school. That's right, high school.
Six years after graduating, I am sitting in my parent's basement wearing that same red track pants that weathered every early class of my freshman year. Unlike those mornings, I am not hungover and have no exciting stories to tell. I am the success story schools want to produce, fallen to the wayside.
I am a substitute teacher who needs to get her life together. I wait for a call each morning and arrive in front of a classroom ready to appear capable and confident.
Do you remember high school? Frizzy hair, braces and awkward social moments, all before class starts. Today I stood in front of 25 aspiring science students. Though I struggled to pass grade twelve chemistry, I neglected to tell them this as I assigned questions on iodizing equations. From a secure vantage, I enjoy the weird satisfaction in knowing that life does get better beyond these walls.
Just because I am penniless and live with my parents and watch TV on Saturday nights doesn't mean that it always has or always will be this way. I'm in a slump, don't you know? I am entitled to whine until my liberal arts overeducation pulls through and bumps me up to a satisfied, smug, [insert occupation here] future that involves restored Victorian apartments and well stocked wine racks.
High school is, of course, temporary. I escaped once and I'll do it again. Someday I will have a grown-up job where I do not feel out of place in the staff room. I might even have health benefits. In the meantime, the concept of such a job is abhorrent. I am far too transient, I insist. Yet I have started to like this snug mid-point to the rest of my life. I can be a hermit to social obligations and sink back to a simpler time, when someone else pays the cable bill and fills the refrigerator.
Immediately upon entering a classroom, I can pick out familiar patterns in the mass of I-pods, lululemon, and skinny jeans. Different faces, different names. Same stances, same attitudes. Most people look desperately insecure. I suppress the urge to yell at those who don't. They're usually the people who talk during lessons and roll their eyes when called upon. Or, better yet, they leave for extended trips to the bathroom.
“Enjoy it,” I want to say. “This is as good as it gets for you. Savour every moment because in three years you'll be washed up and socially stunted and wish you had a cafeteria to watch your every move.”
Since there are few of these people and they will find this out eventually, I keep my mouth shut. Why ruin it for them. I take deep satisfaction knowing that I have better shoe/outfit coordination than they ever will.
Going back to high school has its high points. I now know that orange juice and vodka is overrated, that good marks are not, that proper hair products work wonders, that Junior hockey does not make someone attractive, and that people should seriously reconsider platform shoes and excessive eyeliner at 9am.
For a rut, I have begun to enjoy this stopping point. My crisis has been stayed by retrospection free from nostalgia. I did okay during the past six years. I'm not exactly a beacon of morality or stability or great life choices but I'm not pregnant, bankrupt or working at a check-out. To top it off, teaching is actually fun.
If I got a report card it would say, “shows potential.” This gives me an edge when I start class everyday. Those kids still have the hard stuff ahead of them. I'm taking a breather until the fun starts again.
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