forced entry #415

i have a friend whos birthday is today. he's turning thirty six years. in some context, that's pretty old. but in others, hes still a kid. its funny, as the years go by and we grow in age, we are simultaneously reminded of how old we are getting, and how young we still are.

when i refer to people in their mid twenties, i do it in a fashion that suggest they are still infantile in many ways, that supposes they have much to learn, and that there is still an innocence about them that, if they are smart, they will treasure and not take for granted. at the same time, when i was in my mid twenties i felt mortality begin to close in upon me, the suffocation of adulthood had begun to settle, and i assumed a weariness that has yet to go away.

now im closing in on my mid thirties and the sensation of time falling away too quickly always leaves me in a panic. i wake up with this sick sense of urgency that i never felt before. the feeling of unaccomplishment pervades in me. i have to get things done. if i dont it will be too late.

my friend though, he has other ideas about life. another year comes and goes and he maintains the slow, steady pace he has been on since i met him in high school. he still lives with his mother. he still brags about the things he will accomplish, the dreams that are never quite in his reach, the goals he hopes he'll eventually achieve. for work, he owns a small, insignificant car detailing business, which he inherited from his brother ten years ago, and proceeded to squander as the decade wore on. what was once a two thousand dollar a week business now maybe nets him fifteen hundred dollars a month. he commutes to the city from the suburbs, every night, to meet with his friends and drink cheap beer while hitting on women who are getting increasingly too young for him. hes been doing this since we were sixteen.

i tell him to move from his mothers place. i plead with him to escape [thats what it would be, an escape]. he agrees that he should, but then goes over the list of reasons why there is no way he can. he explains how he needs to save money for a place. how he ruined the little bit of credit he had when he was younger, so its difficult to find a place of his own. how his small number of clients are all over the bridge or through the tunnel, not far from his mothers place, deep in the dull streets of suburbia. he says he cant find anyone who he would want to live with, then goes over the failed attempts hes made at finding a place with friends he COULD tolerate [all those friends eventually found places on their own, hes the only one that remained defeated in the ventures]. finally he admits that, at this stage in his life, the prospect of moving out and onto his own, is a profoundly frightening pursuit.

i agree, it must be.

i wonder sometimes if its too late for him to move. that he is so deeply settled into this rut, that it would be harder work to get out of it than it would be to just go on as it is. hes let his childhood firmly wrap itself around his entire life. his security blanket is attached to his skin. he goes no where without it, he cant. he is a shining example of a person in arrested development.

oh well, this just came to me as i sat down at the old computer. i dont fault the guy for it. maybe id do the same thing if i could. happy birthday bro, i hope you never see this post.