» Dani’s diary
Dani asks if she’s destined for a life of mediocrity as she feels the grinding halt of a life not lived
I think I have been lying. This isn’t my life, surely? I can’t possibly be agreeing to be one of those ordinary people who work normal hours doing normal things. Wouldn’t that make me average? Wouldn’t that make me like everyone else?
“I have always been doing something people are jealous of, and yet now I am jealous of everyone else”
I am sad that my life has now ground to some almighty halt in which I find myself a boring nobody with nothing interesting to say and no one interesting to meet.
I cannot bear the idea that this is potentially it. That this is my life for the next 50 years. I know I am not the only one who gets this ‘grown-up job fear’, which I am sure is a real problem – and could possibly only be solved by a Doctor Nicholas Ogdeby, who as it happens doesn’t exist, so I have no hope of escaping this nine to five coma.
Part of me really wants this life. Not having too many things to worry about, saving for a decent pension and security (whatever that means). The other half just doesn’t want to be inside, it wants to be doing cool things, like writing books and making films and meeting wonderfully beautifulpeople who, in the end will make me feel the size of a pea. I just don’t feel I fit in with this environment and these people. Not that these people are not nice, they really are. I am just not one of them. I have always been doing something people are jealous of, and yet now I am jealous of everyone else.
I have passed up many opportunities because I just couldn’t really be bothered with it, I didn’t want to set myself up to be let down, I didn’t feel like I had the confidence. In saying that, even now I don’t have the confidence, I couldn’t just pick up and leave without another thought. Since the breakdown, as much as I hate to admit it, I need structure. I can’t live that life I always wanted because it was uneven and full of worry. Perhaps, when thinking about it, I am doing it right, perhaps I should do what my body needs for a while then try and do what I want to do. Although that again makes me worry that I will be still here, in 30 years, still wearing the same clothes and talking about something fun I did when I was 19. It makes me feel slightly sad that where I am now is probably where I will be in five years’ time. I did want to be here. You want to be married when you propose but you can still get cold feet the day before.
So I suppose I have cold feet. That’s the least offensive way of putting it. I desperately don’t want to be average but it’s clear that I am and nothing more. The realisation of that is making me want to punch things, which can’t be a good sign.
When I say ‘being grown-up’ I mean being at the age where you get married, have a mortgage, get a dog and have friends who come over every Friday for a meal. It just feel that as soon as I prepare myself for that nothing interesting is ever going to happen again.
