I am jealous of those who think more deeply, write with more style, have more confidence, sing better, are loved, have time, and are secure in themselves. I sit here in this familiar seat, the cold air from the AC blowing at the flyers on the tagboard, Leanne Rhimes singing “Me and Bobby McGee” in the background, and I think, like Sylvia Plath, of this life I was born into. I am surrounded every day by the teens in my town, in their generically weathered clothes from American Eagle and the Gap, their faces somberly echoing the dreary, weary life they think they live. They will finish out their high school career, filling it with one keg party in a cornfield after another. Some will go on to SCSU, or NDSU, or Ridgewater, and they will go on to live the lives of their parents, marrying, having kids, going to the corner bar after work every day. These will be their lives, full of everyday tragedy and soap opera romances.
Not only am I mildly jealous of this starry-eyed, small town state of mind that these people seem to so easily fall into, but I am mocking it, discontent with my part of it. I will refuse to settle into the life of the ant in a colony. Sure, there are those who will, but I am not content to let myself be carried along on this wave of conformity. I do not want to be like everyone else, even though I sometimes envy their numbed security. I am not a sheep. I want to live my life with awareness. I want to live recklessly, love recklessly, and end my life knowing that not once did I allow myself the comfort of being like everyone else.