My name is Never-Was

Paul McCartney wrote most of his great music by the time he was 28. We’re talking “Yesterday” and “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be.” Era-defining work. 28.

And I’m 32. What the hell have I been up to? I write a blog. Jesus.

Yeah, I know–I’m a teacher, which is considered by many to be qualitatively “better” than being a rock star, and maybe it is. But I’m left with the feeling that any chance I have to be something more than the Blogging Teacher has been lost in the passage of the last decade.

You know how when you’re fresh out of college you think you could do anything, because you’re young and full of beans and you haven’t had to deal with the Real World yet? Heady stuff. I dreamed a dream and all that shit.

Then you start making choices–small ones, mostly–and you notice that your options are dwindling. You feel like you’re sifting through the $5 DVD bin of Life, and everything looks like a direct-to-video Ernest film or, if you’re lucky, a double feature of Jeff Fahey movies. You gotta pick something, right? And then here you are, teaching kids where Virginia is on a motherfucking map. You’re 32, which still seems young until you realize what Jesus had done by 33.

And so we march onward toward the grave, bundles of personal compromise and sacrificed hopes, each day bringing us closer to our final moment of shrugged-shoulder acceptance, which, happily, is at least followed by rest.