Ya know, truth be told, after I realized that being a lawyer isn't all about arguing and making people cry on the stand (not to mention a whole lot more class time), I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grew up - for that matter, I'm almost 35 and I still don't. The only thing I did know is that I didn't want to go 100 grand or so in debt trying to find out. I had absolutely no intention of going to college after about the 7th grade. The rest of my scholastic "career" spoke directly to that decision. I repeated 8th grade (although, the school that held me back refused to take me back. That always makes me chuckle). In my junior year they changed the system to reduce the impact of exams on the final grade, thus destroying my "show up every couple of weeks, do nothing, ace the exams and end up with a D" strategy that had gotten me through high school to that point. I was going to fail 11th grade anyway when we all agreed that me parting ways with the Prince William County School System was really in the best interest of everyone involved. Except my parents. But, hey, I was 18 so they didn't really have a say in the matter. Walking out of school that last time, cigarette in hand, is still one of my favorite memories. Getting a 1380 on the SAT with a raging hangover a couple of months later (and mailing the results to my old principal) is on the list, too. Basically, for me, high school existed simply to annoy me. It's really just there to get you to college, and since I wasn't planning on going to college, it held absolutely no importance for me.

So I spent the majority of the next decade tossing sautee pans & liquor bottles and trying to convince myself that I was a writer. But the more I think about it, the more I think that I never really wanted to be a writer any more than I ever really wanted to be anything else. The idea of it just appealed to me. No set hours, you can do it from anywhere and if you're good enough, at some point people will convince themselves that you were some kind of god even if you just filled pages with broken sentence fragments and stilted dialogue while you drank yourself into a coma (Hi Ernie!). "Hell," I thought, "now there's a job I can get down with". Sadly, the complete lack of an attention span doomed that idea before it was even truly formed.

Anyway, today's assault on your brainpan is my attempt to explain my inherent sloth and apathy to the piece of paper I wrote it on. It even has a title!




When I was Young


I wanted to be a writer but I didn't have the words
I wanted to be a poet but I didn't have the soul
I wanted to be a rockstar but I didn't have the magic
I wanted to run forever but there's nowhere left to go

I wanted to be a lover but I didn't have the time
I wanted to be a fighter but I didn't have the balls
I wanted to be a genius but I didn't have the vision
I wanted to be a martyr but I couldn't find a cause

I wanted to be a hero but I never really cared
I wanted to be a leader but I couldn't play the part
I wanted to be alone but I couldn't lose the voices
I wanted to a savior but I didn't have the heart




Now, I know what you're thinking. "But, Nate," you say, "you obviously wanted to be so many things. It even says so in those twelve ridiculous lines." and I understand your confusion. Here's the explanation. I'm lazy. Sure, I've "wanted" to be many things in my life, but I've never wanted to be anything enough that I was actually willing to do something about it. It's just so much easier to lament my shortcomings in small word groupings that normally didn't even span a second page. Hell, as I've made plainly aware, I can't even maintain a proper blog. I work like a sherpa when there's a paycheck involved but thast work ethic has never carried over into the rest of life. I'm like an Ox in a way. Hook me up to the plow, and I'll work all day, but in my downtime I can be perfectly happy wandering around my pen, grazing and fucking. Although, I must admit, I can even be too lazy to bother with those two.

Go in peace.