"..the dark hour of reason grows.."

"Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows" -John Betjeman.

This particular quote was at the opening of “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”. It has stuck with me ever since I saw the movie in Vero Beach, Florida, where I lived for several months last year.

It is a heavy concept- growing up. Everyone has to do it because our bodies change and age everyday- living ultimately toward a degenerative death. I think as people get older, they try to gauge where in the spectrum of life they are- creating lists of things they want to do and complete before it’s all over, if only subconsciously.

My boss at “Job 2", who actually turned thirty-one recently, says that he’s pretty sure he’s reached the point in his life where he will never have any children. At thirty-one, he’s still pretty young and capable, but maybe it also has to do with the social aspects. My parents had my older sister at the age of thirty-one, and myself at thirty-three. They waited a bit; my dad was in the Airforce and would be traveling quite a deal. But whatever the reason, not that they were particularly bad parents, it just felt I couldn’t relate to them much as I grew up. I don’t have that close mother-daughter bond where I feel like I can open up to her about anything and everything. My dad- he’s another story. Let’s just say I respect him more now that I’m older and see the world through different eyes.

One thing in particular that my dad forced upon me, which I now appreciate, is money management. I was confused as a child when my dad called my sister and I down to the kitchen one day, and started babbling on about deposits, withdrawals, and cataloging everything. He handed each of us a book which had columns for the numbers and labels, and a clear blue file folder in the back- for receipts. Every. Single. Month. My dad would check the math we’d kept in the columns, try to see if we had receipts for everything, and most importantly- check to see that the balance in the book matched the balance of our piggy banks.

In recent days, I have been doing my budgeting. I spread out all of my receipts and sorted them into categories (grocery, hygiene, luxuries) classifying how much of my budget I was spending on variable expenses. Then I made a chart of my current fixed expenses (rent, phone bill, medication, ect)... added it all up and compared it to the average income I have been earning from either and both jobs combined. It felt sooo good getting organized with my finances, but it was really just the simple budgeting- I haven’t quite reached the point of investing..

I asked around at “Job 1" to some of the older guys (mid to late 30s and 40s)- what their budgets were like. I figured, especially since they had kids, they would be able to provide me with some insight on possible costs to cut.. leaving me somewhat disappointed when it seemed I knew more about the whole ordeal than they did.

“At what point do you think a person should write their will?” he asked. As we usually do, the Chef Supervisor at “Job 1" and I were engaged in some provoking conversation as the work night dragged along. It seemed a little strange that he would ask me the morbid question when he is sixteen years my senior. Adults always seemed to have everything figured out... you know, they were supposed to be responsible. But through my now adult eyes, it is apparent that I was wrong. People are still just as insecure and clueless as ever- each day passing with time relentlessly dragging on- leaving them to a spectrum of instability on their position in life..

Perhaps this is why older people seem to jump into marriage head on, while younger couples wait to see if it would work out. People even shorten their life’s goals down to a consolidated, limited list- in the event they should decide to create an offspring for themselves. The amount of attention and funding for a child’s life would be important and consuming, to take care of- until their own dark hour of reason were to grow.

People’s relationships and family plans seem to be a very prominent factor in the age schema. Personally, if I am fated to have an offspring, I would prefer it to be sooner rather than later- for social reasons. Yet, I am patient about the idea of finding a life partner- if I ever am to- perfectly comfortable about focusing on my own goals and career success. It’s like a huge tangled mess of hypothetical situations coupled with logic and emotions..and I AM only 20!

Why should I even concern myself with such big possible life decisions? I should be slapping people across the face with peanut butter and thinking it’s funny.. indulging in water fights.. going dancing.. tagging art onto buildings while I hang upside down from fire escapes.. I should run through every fountain in the city.. skinny dip in the dark of the night... and indulge in countless rendevous... since I’m 20.

But I don’t feel 20. Ugh.

I suppose society wouldn’t mind if I act as if I’m 20, no more than they have to mind the way I “act as if” I’m Wonder Woman- testing the limits of time itself to work, learn, and grow as a person... I stumble through my high-octane rush against it all just to be ahead of the game- and make it look like I’m strutting.

“So every time I start slippin- ego's start trippin'. I focus real hard and levitate just like I'm GOD. And I'm livin' lovely; I'm in the clouds no one above me, with the gift to differentiate snakes from those that love me. There's a thin line between happiness and hopeless.. an even thinner line between on point and out of focus.”

I feel like there should be a better way to end this entry.. but the clock is still ticking... and life goes on with it. We each only get one.