Human Fate.

Have you ever been at that stage where you don't know what to do?

I'm not talking standing in front of the fridge with a multitude of food choices. Nor am I talking about that moment when your wife/husband/partner/loved de facto asks you where you've been and you don't know whether to tell the truth that you've been at the pub/bar/watching reality TV or lie and say work/friend's/library. 

I mean when your life literally comes to a standstill. You've moved back in with your parents, quit your job or stopped travelling. Or you've moved out of your parents, got a job or started travelling. I'm talking about those phases of life that feel like the end of an era but envisioning the next phase of life seems near impossible. Like a world without Twitter. 

That phase happened to me. Perhaps it happens to all of us, at some time or other. If the earth conspires to help us get what we want, then I needed to be more clear. Unemployed and homeless was never the plan. I had signed off on the travelling part of my life. Not completely, just to show my parents that I did have long term goals, career plans and a focus on the future beyond what country I'd be in tomorrow, or where I was going to find dinner. 

Thinking ahead as a twenty something is a daunting prospect. The 20's are a mindfield of selfishness. We don't have children, mortgages or long term investments. We are animal free, rent any appliances we need and even our plants don't make it through winter. It is a decade of 'me', 'I' and pure focus on the 'self'. It feels like an entitlement. 30 year olds will look at us with toddlers running round their feet, their eyes glistening with the promise of freedom, of nights without tantrums and collapsing into bed fully clothed. We are told to make the most of it, that it won't be like this forever. 

So we do. We travel spontaneously, dance with our eyes closed, stumble through streets, tell stories as the sun rises and laugh, cry and love unabashedly free, fiercely young and living the moment. 

But after awhile we discover this isn't the way we'll live forever. We need to stop, slow down, look ahead. No one but the members of Jackass can continue in this pattern. 

And here I lie. 

I'm contemptuously searching for jobs, trying to come with words I like to put into a search box I've seen too much of. I need experience, but can't find it. I feel like a ballet dancer who's been told that the only spots going are for boxers. I'm competing against thousands with more experience, better backgrounds/grades/work attire. I'm sending my CV to another island where a skim-reading 9 to 5'er makes flippant decisions on my future. Thousands of miles away I think of the suit wearing individual who will decide my fate on the construction of my words. Is he married? A rugby fan? Does he like camping? Have children? Drive a Ford? Is he happy? 

I can't see his face and he can't see mine. I am a collation of letters and he is my God. 

I still don't know what to do. It's not up to me.