Sleeping, Age and The Future

Most people “drift off” to sleep. During these few but glorious days of vacation here on the homestretch I have instead pioneered the practice of “drifting back” to lucidity after a long night’s sleep. You know, you wake up at 10.30AM, but there’s really nothing that’s forcing you to up, up and away; the house is quiet, the bed is soft and you’re not due on the links before 5PM. Why not stretch out for a wee while longer? Why not under these circumstances slowly and gradually wake up by taking infinitesmall steps towards full mental capacity? Aye, this is the life and it is good.

Anyways. During one of these slow processes one morning this week I found myself mulling over the fact that it has been something like 15 months since I’d been “home”. It’s been two whole school semesters and then some since I sat foot on Ulrikedalsvägen 2T Apt # 416 in Lund. In the state I was in at the time I kicked this back and forth in my mind and it seemed almost like an eternity. I remember vividly – almost like a dream you really remember the details off - how I couldn’t really believe it had actually been more than 365 days since I’d been home. Surely I couldn’t have spent that much time in America? A year’s worth of dinners, walks in the midday sun, concerts, friendships made and drinks drunk? Before reaching full mental capacity I felt that I was missing some important factor, that it had been 1 semester but it really had “felt” like two or something…

The life I lead is one of truly temporal placement; since 2003 I’ve lived in Chicago, in Jönköping, two different places in Lund and now also a year in Chapel Hill, NC. And now I have just one semester left in Lund before I either head off to Stockholm for work or probably to Boston for a Master’s degree (which is different in law than other subjects, Master is something you become after you’re a JD – i.e. in my case it would mean me having completed 5,5 years of law).

It’s all so crazy moving around like this…it takes a special kind of person I imagine. A lot of people would scoff at the choices I’ve made along the way and the complete and utter rootless-ness I find myself in. I mean, my parents met during the first semester at law school and had moved in together like a year later – they were what, like 21 when they met or something? Crazy. During the past year I liked to tell people back home that the only things I missed in my life was family, some friends back home and the opportunity to watch FC Barcelona on TV.

I’m 25 and this last year when I spent a lot of time with somewhat younger lads and lassies in North Carolina we often jokingly discussed my age and how incredibly old I was. Numerous times I had to explain to people pushing a rowdy deuce-deuce that, no I had in fact absolutely no qualms about being 25.

I mean, I’m about done with law school and I have the world by the danglies – literally the day after my graduation come January I could either settle into a relatively high-paying job somewhere in Sweden or I could start angling for a way to get into a Master’s program anywhere I please. I’m certainly no “forever young” type, in the parlance of you Carolinians I won’t be an East End patron for life (scratch that, I will always love East End!!!) – but I love to study, and it’s not like I’m spending my time and racking up big student loans for a degree in Interpretive Dance. If I decide to spend another year at a Master’s Program I will earn entry-level salaries the year after that is nothing short of astronomical. So yeah, I really could have been done with school now, I could be settled in somewhere in Sweden working for a law firm or at a Court making money and settling down.

But I’m not and there’s literally not one second of the day when I wish I was. I’m wishing for tomorrow to be sunny, for the links to be empty, for my friends to be up for some drinks in the evening, for an opportunity to end my studies in Lund with a great semester and then just close my eyes, have faith in providence and see where I end up. In a year’s time I could be at the District Court in Stockholm, I could be halfway through a Master’s Program in America, I could be somewhere else. The only thing I know for sure is that I will not find myself a year from now in the middle of a lucrative golfing career, ‘cause boy my long irons are killing me right now.

Now playing: “Pyramid Electric Co.” Jason Molina

Now reading: “The Machine Crusade” Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson