Just a week is all I ask!

So I've been 28 for a week and here's what I feel like-

I SHOULD be doing something better, yeah? This is my problem: I'm a product of television. The tv became my babysitter at the tender age of eight when I was plopped in front of it in the visitors lounge at the hospital my father was in. As fast as you could say "The kisses are hers and hers and his..." I was an immediate addict. It's where I learned about sex, love, relationships, my vocabulary, fashion, drugs, what you should be angry about, what should make you sad, what you should do with your life- the fashion labels you should be wearing, how to appear smart, how to make your friends laugh- It was essesntially my mentor. While learning from my mentor, I found out, that by the age of sixteen, you should have a really sexy, somewhat bad boyfriend who writes you love notes and slips them into your locker, makes out with you at the picnic tables at lunch, should drive a motorcycle or a really old beat up car (that he and his rotten old man rebuilt from the ground up) and is secretly wildly intelligent. After about a month of dating- he should tell you he loves you in this incredibly romantic way; and you should be thinking it too, only you let him say it first. Then you cry and kiss him and say somethng like "Oh, (boy's name here) I love you too!" You should also have a best friend who you tell everything to- you cry with her, she does your hair- and then you have a really big blowout fight with. And a passion for some extracurricular school activity. You should also have a political drive.

I did have the passion thing. I was passionate about theater. I did have a best friend- although i didn't tell her much of anything. I could have cared less about politics and I most certainly did not have a boyfriend- bad or otherwise.

Television is also where I learned about being a college kid. When you're eighteen, you should go away to college. It should be a long drive, but your parents do it. They help you move into your dorm, introduce themselves to your new roomate and after a teary goodbye, they leave you to your new life alone. You and your roomate either completely despise eachother or you become instant best friends. (the latter only happens if you and your roomate are from different races. As I am black, I assumed I would fall into that catagory) You drink alot when you're in college. Also, you have to become friends with someone who has a PROBLEM. Either she was raped or has an eating disorder or a drug or alcohol addiction. Whatever her problem is, you have to help her through it and learn a valuable lesson from it. You maybe rush a sorority, dependant on how lame it is. You absolutely must, must, MUST find a political cause to get behind, like Free Tibet, or the environment or women's rights or animal rights. You must demonstrate for this cause, either by participating in a sit in or marching or passing out fliers. This cause is where you meet your college boyfriend. He is sensitive and kind of granola-y. He wears hemp and smells like patchouli. He has facial hair and is passionate about his politics to a fault. Okay- either he is your college boyfriend or ideal-guy-that-your-parents-love-and-you-end-up-marrying is your college boyfriend. IGTYPLAYEUP is clean cut, gets good grades, probably plays a sport and wears dockers every day. He takes you away for the weekend to his parents summerhome in the country.

Okay- I went to a junior college that did not have on campus housing. I lived at home so my roomate... was my dad. I did not have a friend with a problem. I did not rush a sorority as the only sororities on campus were Phi Theta Kappa (the honors sroroity) and Lamda Delta Sigma (LDS for short, the Mormon sorority). Once again, I could have cared less about politics and I did not have a boyfriend, granola or otherwise.

Finally, adulthood. When you're in your twenties, you move out to a cheap, but really hip apartment where you live with a couple roomates. You are definetely best friends with one of your roomates. You get a job that turns into your career, you date a string of guys all with different genres (musician guy, doctor guy, guy that's younger than you, really funny guy, oversensitive guy, rich guy, et al). You have a fantastic group of friends who you go out with at least once a week and do incredibly fun things. You of course fall in love and get married.

The wedding is huge. Its the occasion of the century. It's perfect. All of your best female friends are there. You wear a multi-thousand dollar dress and your father cries. It is held in a church and a really old priest conducts the ceremony. There should be special appearances from people in your past who you never thought you'd see again, but showed up to your wedding as like a peace offering. Your best friend helps you get dressed and offers to help you disappear if you want to back out. You have an amazing band at the reception- where your best friend, of course, catches the bouquet. The best man and maid of honor give amazing toasts- and then you go away and change into a smart skirt suit-- and you and your new husband drive away in a limo as you wave goodbye to all of your friends out the back window.

Then you buy a house with New Husband. Then you get pregnant. Then you have a baby- who you love and name something meaningful. This all happens before you are twenty eight.

I think you see where this is going. I Barely graduated from college. My career is flighty at best. I'm not dating a slew of different guys. I do not have the cheap but hip apartment. I HAD a fantastic group of friends but as a result of some well placed misunderstandings, I do not. My point is this. I have no dea what I should be doing right now. Slowly, I have learned that all of the things tha happen on tv, in this way that makes you believe that it happens to everyone- don't always happen. Infact- they never do, to me. Tv was always this roadmap for me- this is what you do here, this is what you do here- and now- I have no map. I find myself stranded at twenty-eight thinking "Ishould have passed this place, this place and this place but I haven't! Do I have to go back and find these places or do I move on and find a new place; a place I didn't expect?" It's terrifying and exhilerating. But mostly terrifying. It's not that I don't know how lame it is that I based my entire life on what tv has told me to do, but I did. So, I'm lost. Not like "Lost" lost but, I'm completely disoriented and well, lost. It's like- I can see where I want to be, but I can't get there. Too many obstacles.

So- I should be there and I'm here. I'm twenty-eight. Where do I go?