i read something today that reminded of a time when i wasn’t here. i was in a hot library trying desperately to concentrate on something i didn’t care so much about, trying to pass a degree that i didn’t want in the first place, a degree that i thought was never going to change my life but that i was doing to prove something not to myself but to others.
i would sit for hours procrastinating, filling in blank spaces on the internet and reading poetry and looking at art on the web and trying to write something just as beautiful but failing and then two hours later i would realise that in fact i was sat there with the aim to write an essay, a presentation, a review. Id write an introduction, a hundred words or so which turned out to be the brief that my lecturer gave me rewritten in my own words. And then a friend would walk past, 'fancy a drink' or 'fancy a movie and hot drinks and fags' and id say yes jumping up (any excuse, any excuse) and forgetting my project, forgetting my essay until later that night when id be lying in bed feeling like a failure.
And then the next day, everyone queuing up to hand in there essays that they had spent not only days but weeks researching and writing and me feeling miserable and pathetic and i could have done that but i chose not to and everyone giving me those disappointed looks, but really they couldn’t have been more disappointed than me, at myself.
so id have another drink. forget the whole thing and not act surprised when on results day they told me i didn’t get my honors, i didn’t get a good degree i got a pass... and lets face even im surprised they were that generous.
but look where i am. ok im not in the best job in the world. im not working in the music industry (which i never really wanted to anyway, if im honest), im not earning a lot of money. but im happy. i have a nice house, i have a nice job and i have excellent friends. who needs to spend three years lying in bed awake wondering what the hell your doing with your life. it all works great in the end.
