23 and So Tired of Life...Such a Shame to Throw It All Away

I’m in at 11:39 on my birthday (I have work in the morning) and I can’t help but wonder…how did it end up like this? I never thought I would be 23 and so unaccomplished. I used to have such huge goals and plans for myself (and pretty much still do), and somehow, they have all eluded me. Until now, I suppose.

I spent my birthday with good friends at a classic Sunset Strip haunt (my beloved, Anthony Kiedis, hung out there as a child, because his father was dealing drugs out of the place)—Rainbow Bar and Grill—and then went over to another Sunset Strip classic, Viper Room, to see my boss’s son’s band play. Suck up, you say? Not really. The guy is actually pretty hot.

And it’s strange, because I meet so few straight men in the city, and this guy actually seems pretty cool, and is definitely very hot. But he’s pretty much unattainable due to the fact that HE’S MY BOSS’S SON.

All of this is unnecessary back story. The point is, I’m 23, and I’m nearly unemployed (I quit my job with the aforementioned boss on Monday), and I am nowhere near the success and fame I had planned on in my early 20s. I don't even have a boyfriend (nor have I ever), and somehow I doubt that my boss's son will be in my future. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s just a lot harder than I originally thought, that I’m doing the best I can, that it will happen eventually. But there’s a growing, subliminal fear that…maybe it won’t.

Maybe I won’t ever be a published author whose audience is far greater than the handful of you who read this column. Maybe I won’t ever have the opportunity to make incredible films. Maybe I won’t touch anybody, maybe I will never make an impact in any way on anything or anybody. This is a very possible fear, a very likely reality.

But the naïve, innocent, still-hopeful side of me is desperately trying to convince the other side of me that that is all nonsense. That it will happen, that I’m destined for greatness. That 23 is just a number, and a small number, at that. That this will pass and the next year will be amazing.

I’ve never had a boyfriend, never really have done anything remarkable, never have lived life on the edge as I have imagined I would. Sure, I’ve had more experiences than a lot of people, I’ve seen a significant amount of the world, I’ve had some pretty cool things go on in my life. But it’s nowhere near what I ever wanted.

How do you cope in this world if you’re forever wishing for something else? How can you go on if your dream is in a part of a world that is rapidly changing—the world of art? It’s not like artistry has ever been an easy thing to make an impact in while you’re alive; we’re not all Andy Warhols and Steven Spielbergs. But I have to grab on to the hope, the promise that permeates every day life here in Los Angeles, that it still can happen. That 23 isn’t that old. That there’s still plenty of time, that it will all work out. Because without that hope, I would be nothing.

And as I’m buzzing and confused and wishing I didn’t have to go to work in the morning, I’m also desperately trying to ignore the fear and the wonderment that nothing significant will ever happen to me. I may have experienced travel, working on a major motion picture, exciting flings, and jail, but I’m not confident that I will ever experience life as it could be if nothing comes of my desire to make a real impact as an artist. And that’s what makes me sad on my 23rd birthday—the fact that I’m growing more aware that it could be possible that my dreams are becoming further and further away.

I feel as though I should be wearing shoulder pads to work and should be financially independent. I’m still supported by my father and I wear t-shirts to work as I ruin my eyes by staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day. I wish beyond all wishes that my life were different, and I hope beyond all hope that quitting my current job will open me up to the possibility of real success. But still I worry that it won’t happen.

So I don’t really know what to make of this birthday, except to cling on to the miniscule hope that the guy I’ve been dating will turn out to be someone decent, that maybe I will find a friend in my boss’s hot son, that maybe something will work itself out in my career. It’s that hope that keeps me going, that forces me to get out of bed every morning, that refuses to disappear even in the depths of my despair. I can’t push it away yet, because I am still so unable to settle on the notion that it will never happen.

And maybe it won’t ever happen. Maybe the people I will only ever reach with my art are the people—you—who are reading this column. But I pray that I will never lose the hope, the fire that pushes me, the unnatural desire to make an impact and to make a difference. Because without that hope, without that driving force, my life would be meaningless. And so, I have to be pleased to some degree that I’m still a naïve young twenty-something who has celebrated her birthday in style.

With her boss’s hot son. You know you’re in Los Angeles when…