socks, anti-aging and peanut butter

In late August, hoards of young Ivy Leaguers descend.

I sell them 3 subject notebooks. I sell them dry erase boards. I sell them flash drives in the shape of cars, sharks and Stewie Griffin. When I ask for photo identification, I’m presented with college IDs on crimson lanyards. I smile at the genuineness, the sometimes less than covert human desire to proclaim, “Look! I’ve made it! Affirm my effort!”

At 11 pm, after I’ve punched out of work, I ride the bus. At my stop, I thank the bus driver because I wasn’t raised here and I walk the two blocks to my apartment. It’s dark and quiet and sometimes – if I let it – the cemetery I must pass, unnerves me. I’m not afraid of tombstones, just stillness. The way tricolor, foil pinwheels on children’s graves glint and catch moonlight. I’m uneasy of time. So, I imagine what I’d do if I were jumped. I count the streetlights. I try to drown out the calm with too much thinking.

When I arrive home, I let my dog outside. I take off my pants. I make a peanut butter sandwich. I talk on the phone to A. I send a text to B, another to L, a final to A. Something inane like, Meow, or I want brunch in and around my mouth. I read. I write. I listen to music. I refuse to sit quietly.

At the roughly appointed time, I wash my face. I brush my teeth and put on wrinkle cream because once, while still in university, I overheard girls my age saying they wore wrinkle cream. That it was never too young to start. That they’d preserve their skin, their beauty, their youth long into the future. I smear on wrinkle cream like I might live forever. I put on socks.

After this, I lay down beneath a scratchy wool blanket pilfered from my dad’s house. I turn out the lights. I lay still in the darkness, I create lists in my head, I edit them, I write stories and dialogues and poetry until wakefulness eludes me. I sleep.

This was not the life I imagined for myself as a college freshman. 40 hours a week in retail, eating peanut butter at midnight, just outside the city. This was not my expectation.

I always imagined adulthood would feel more solid. Even as I stood on the threshold of my twenties, I assumed by the time I moved out of my parents’ house, I’d have it more thoroughly figured out. Perhaps I wouldn’t live in a fabulous 1-bedroom apartment (I don’t) and likely I wouldn’t spend every day modishly dressed (style is confined to Fridays, dinner dates, and hosting visitors), but I would at least know what I want.

I haven't got any idea of what to want. 

Any person who claims to “know thyself” is a liar. This is what I’ve learned about being an adult. Nobody has any idea about what they want or need in the long run. It is a daily assessment. The realization feels sort of good and sometimes slightly awful.