on going underground

People keep asking me “what are you going to do?” They say it real slow with their faces all twisted up. Holding their breath. Like I am about to pull a Thelma and Louise and jump off a cliff. My answer to their question is more like a paragraph. But that’s not what they’re asking.
What they really mean is What Are You Going To Do For A Job? I just don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Yeah, I’ll get a job, but it’s just going to be one little piece of that which is What I Am Going To Do. The last time I answered with “live,” which I think is the most accurate and precise answer, but the co-worker in question was so puzzled that I inevitably went into the paragraph. I think a better question is who am I going to be?
I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to go to brunches and potlucks with friends. Go to local rock shows, art shows, take hustler for walks in the cemetery, lay on the grass and watch the sunset. Ride bikes around town. Go hiking in the forest, sneak into the quarries, salvage for junk at the salvo and cast offs at the recycling center. Hang out at the library and Soma, go on nighttime photo hunts, join my friends’ book club, volunteer…all the things I haven’t been doing since I’ve been in Florida. I’m going to get back to being all the versions of myself which I’ve subjugated for this job and this place. Other people have lives, and I want one too.
I feel like I’m coming full circle and making the choice I wanted to make when I was eighteen. I wanted to put off college, get a simple job, and take lots of road trips. My gut instinct was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do for life, but that I knew lots of little things I wanted to do. Going to college felt like such a huge thing. An expensive commitment. No way to turn back and undo it.
And I did love college. It certainly did its job, which is to ripen one as an individual. But it was also at great cost. Being indoctrinated into “the system,” being trained to enter “the big machine.” It’s a slow wake up out of that long sleep. Realizing how things work.
We’re all running for these carrots stuck in our faces without thinking about who put them there. Realizing that the carrot is there is the first step. Once you see it can you choose to ignore it. Ignore it enough and it goes away. Then you can make your own carrots. Make a million in all different directions. Do whatever. Say to hell with the system.
Growing up in Bloomington, it’s easy to think that everything is lovely. That lots of towns are like Bloomington. That every place is a community. That people work together. You just don’t realize how special it is. What an island it is. How rare.
I feel like I can truly say my eyes are open. I am going to dedicate myself to the small. If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do, right?
Right now I am happy to just swim beneath the currents.