Bankruptcy.
I've said that word aloud to my 4 life confidants and they've all shuddered with fear of repercussions.
Understandably so. Bankruptcy is synonymous with public shame, poverty and being confined a lower class of citizens who lack trustworthy attributes.
I disagree and so I am filing bankruptcy, with an enormous smile on my face and relief in my heart. I won't play the game any longer.
My life has consisted of navigating the treacherous waters of what is expected of me which has ultimately compromised who I am. I have worked in the corporate cubicles and the dimly lit warehouses. I have heaved alfalfa bales from the backs of semi's and panhandled for change on San Francisco piers. I've had 401K's and savings accounts, been approved for new cars with no down payments, I've worked 3 jobs while attending 4 classes a week. I've given money to charity, paid for dinner and drinks, bought gifts, pawned DVD's, traded, bartered, sacrificed, done without, starved, exceeded, depleted...I've played this game long enough.
And it is a game. A game of control. A slave trade. Your life for their luxuries. Observe the honorary doctorates schools literally HAND OUT to public officials and alumni's turned celebrity who "make a difference" in the world. You can buy a bachelors, a masters, a doctorate. It's the American way. I'm still buying my bachelor's and I will be for the next 40 years. I paid them for the opportunity to prove my worthiness. I paid them to teach me that a 10-page Psychology paper can be written on a laptop strategically positioned between a Corona and my next hand of poker. I paid them for the validation that comes with a new paint job and higher fuel efficiency. I paid my captors, and I won't do so any longer. I won't play their game anymore.
People say this is your 20's, you pay your dues, you make the right choices and sometime in your 40's you might have a second to breathe easy before you begin physically waning. As Americans we're bred with a sense of entitlement that at some point it will get easier, we've earned it, it MUST! But it's all part of a great big complex lie, the societal stigma of finally reaching the pentacle of success. It's like the first time your parents split the dinner check with you, or even more surprising, to you tonight was your treat....it never gets easier, it never gets more rewarding. This game is a parasite and once you're infected you do everything you can to stay alive.
Now don't get me wrong, my life is incredible. I'm filing bankruptcy knowing that I have a roof over my head eternally. I have everything a person could want and for that I am filled with gratitude so tremendous it has and will continue to change the voice of my writing. The anger that once fueled every line on every page has softened. The voice that speaks now is low and subtle. She is less focused on how she's being perceived and more so focused on clarity. She doesn't have the time for the bullshit, for the struggle. That voice is fearless knowing that when it all falls apart, what remains is the indestructible driving force of your soul.
And I have been stripped bare. I have been so naked and raw in the past year that I thought I'd never recover. I have lost everything I have worked for including my sense of entitlement and expectation about how my life would look at this age, in 10 years, in 20. I have split directly down the middle and what I've always known to be true is the only thing that remains. I'm going to die. You're going to die. Life is terminal. You're wasting your time focusing on anything that doesn't give you complete and total fulfillment. Do what you have to do only to get exactly where you want to be, lose it all. Ask for help, ban together, release the expectations of what makes you whole from the outside in. Have goals, ambitions, and the ability to recognize when you've reached your destination and then REDEFINE, so that you don't become stagnant....without that mindset, you're still going to die, but unfulfilled.
I won't live that life. I won't be that person. I won't play their game any longer. I have a choice and I choose to live.
