User blog:Thebiggesttdifan/Work ethic

What’s going to happen when I have a kid and that kid, at 16, at 15, is going out to parties, rubbing elbows with some chill dudes, going over to their houses, learning how to drive early, getting their braces off, getting good grades, going to the college of their dreams. Am I going to get jealous?

I’m 16, and I have a whole life ahead of me, and at this stage I can change at any time--but change from the status quo is really, really hard to do a lot of the time, especially when I don’t control my own destiny because in my house at the same time as me is a father who stays submerged in the status quo, like a brick attached to me, who doesn’t want to change and who doesn’t want me to fuck up his routine or let me go. And swimming above, being able to breathe, with that brick in place is too much work, and I can still stay alive in the status quo and see and hear, so it’s really not that bad. I can change, but right now I’m fine, but I don’t want to change.

I travel in the back seat of my father’s car because I am too indifferent to bend his rules and too afraid to upset him. I have braces, but I haven’t been to an orthodontist in over six months because I am too indifferent and too afraid. I stay close to his personal daily schedule of relaxing for 13 hours a day, eating dinner at 2 AM, and sleeping at 5 AM because I am too indifferent, and too afraid, and too lazy.

And I won’t bring this up with anyone, or even open up to my dad, because guess what? I’m too indifferent, too satisfied with my short-term current situation, to care, and too afraid of other worlds, other boundaries, to take action. I am indifferent and afraid, and so I am powerless. I am weak, by what I have done to keep my own short-term satisfaction in the equation.

My father’s life advice seems to alternate between “take everything one step at a time” and “accept discomfort rather than letting it control you”. If you take life too often one step at a time, I think, you lose sight of what could really be in front of you--what you should set up your steps to lead to. And “control”, I think, can often just be another word for motivate.

My dad has been fired from two jobs since my mom, an ambitious, motivated, authoritative force, got sick and died. I sit here at my dirty computer desk at 3:30 PM typing this, knowing my plan for the rest of the day is likely to sleep, relax, fiddle with my responsibilities for ten or twenty minutes, and sleep again. As I write this I worry that nothing will change about this, even as I get older and my dad’s responsibilities will become my responsibilities. Because I only ever think in the short-term.

I have no plans for this weekend. I have no plans for the future, beyond what some invisible hand has set up for me. And I am indifferent to this fact, and afraid of what it really means, so I don’t press the issue, or confide in anyone beyond meaningless introspection like this. I don’t do anything. I navel-gaze, and then go back to what I’ve been doing for the last six years: sitting around and doing nothing that matters.

I am 16 years old, and I have a whole life ahead of me, and age is just a number, and it’ll never be too late to start. But by saying any of that, I’m just putting off my own possible dreams, desires, plans, expectations, all for myself, and replacing them with indifference and fear. I back away from an abyss, reassuring myself I can get there one day instead of confronting it head-on.

I have to actually deal with the brick that is my parenting. I need to change. So that when I’m a parent, I won’t have to be dealing with all the stuff I should have years ago, telling myself age is just a number and I can do things no matter how old I get, because the 16-year-old me was an idiot.

And I won’t have to watch my own 16-year-old child face more opportunities, take more risks, have more ambition, than me at that age, and just feel sad.