Real Life? Yikes.

"If I want to fly, I'll find a way to fly. Do what you love and fuck the rest."

When I was about 5 years old, my mom got me purple cowboy boots. I guess they were really cowgirl boots, since they were purple and suede, and made to fit a little girl, but either way, I wore them with everything, and I wore them everywhere. Then I stumbled upon the book Chesters Way by Kevin Henkes, followed by Lillys Purple Plastic Purse, where one of the characters, Lilly, always wore red cowboy boots. With the exception that Lilly was clearly a mouse, this character was me. Lilly was a carefree soul, who jumped and danced and sang as she strode through life, one simple day at a time, swinging her purple (though, I think it may have been violet?) pleather-synthetic purse through the air.

The other day I was sorting through books at work, and Chesters Way emerged through the pile, staring me straight in the face. I sat down and read the book. Followed by Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. For those brief moments, I felt five and simple and wonderful.

It's getting hard to see through the fog of money and necessity. I'm starting to see how people so easily lose their hopes and dreams the day a diploma is placed into their hand - and it frightens me to think that I could so efforlessly do the same. It's so easy to get comfortable and settle, because money makes life a little bit easier, and things like food and electricity are pretty much essential to living.

My dad and I have had numerous arguments and fights about this very topic, and my school loan payments start in just a few days. I'm starting to see the things I want get further and further from my grasp, and the dullness of the everyday is now becoming the ordinary. How can you save for a life and a future if you are constantly stuck paying for your past?

A few weeks ago I bought a new pair of boots. They're not quite cowboy, and they're not quite purple - but it's certainly a start. Right? Post-college life is not the ideal dream I had hoped it would be. I'm not living in my own apartment on the Upper East Side. But I'm getting closer.