Lost & Found

Feeling lost in your early twenties isn’t rare. Rather, I’d argue it’s the norm. I can only speak for myself, but being 21, I do feel that my views are more than likely shared by at least some of my peers, especially when I say that life feels more like a maze than it does a paved, well-lit highway. Nobody seems to really know where they are going or how they’re planning on getting to where it is they want to go. Most of us are just giving each other bad advice that we aren’t sure we believe on our own. And that’s okay. Life is not a point A to point B thing. It lays out more like a treasure map. There’s a faded out, dotted line that is supposed to bring you to the treasure if you follow it, but there’s a heck of a lot of obstacles on your way there, and most of us will get side tracked with a side quest or two on the way to our “treasure.”

With this uncertainty being the reality for most of us, it is often incredibly comforting when an adult agrees with anything we say when they ask us about “our plans.” Saying “I am thinking maybe Nashville/Chicago/Las Vegas/etc” to another 22 year-old in a bar, 8 drinks deep, is always received with great energy and positive vibes. The response usually sounds something like “great city” or “why not honestly?” While these conversations are fun and comforting, they are nowhere near as exciting as when an adult pats you on the back and tells you “you’ve got the right idea, champ.”

Recently, while at work, I expressed concern about doing the same job for the rest of my life to an inquisitive guest and his girlfriend. Mind you, this would be 4-5 decades of work. I fear that burnout could really come into play, no matter how much you or I love our job. The sentiment was received by the pair with big smiles and nodding heads. The two (both in their late 50s to early 60s) said that I had the right idea, and I felt a great sense of relief as the gentleman began to layout his life’s journey. He explained that he had quit his job of 30 odd years just 3 years ago, and that he had been working a new, “liberating” job the last three. Before I could even ask what his new job was, he began a monologue about the empowerment of working as a freelance masseuse in the SE Iowa area.

A sense of unrelenting dread fell upon me. What had I done? What hellscape of a conversation had I walked myself into? This isn’t the story I was hoping to hear. I had only seconds ago expected to hear about a real estate empire this man had built with his retirement from his first 30 years of work. I had expected to hear that he was the new CEO of a blossoming tech company based out of Chicago that he had just started, or that he had won a government contract for his privately owned lawn care company that he made his grandsons break their backs over or something, anything, other than “freelance massage work.” Christ have mercy on this poor guy’s soul.

To no surprise, I didn’t hear a word he said for the next 2 minutes. I watched as his mouth moved quickly, barely taking time to catch a breath between stories of memorable massages, but my ears had turned off. My mind raced with thoughts of self-dread. This wasn’t the guy I wanted to look me in the eye and tell me “you got it right, kid.” I don’t want to work as a “freelance masseuse” in the dark, lonely corner of SE Iowa. That’s not comforting. It’s haunting.

As my ears turned back on I caught a trailing off sentence about “earning the certification online” and almost blacked out. He was apparently laying out a step-by-step process for me to enter into the so-called “liberating” lifestyle of oiling up old farmers from “just west of Burlington, IA,” which he claimed was a “real hotspot.”

I wish that guy the best. He’s maybe... happy idk (although happy people generally don’t go on 4 minute rants to waiters about why they’re so happy with their life choice of quitting a salaried position to freelance massage dry-skinned farmers.) Regardless, he taught me an important lesson. Sometimes, you don’t want someone to tell you that you got it “figured out.” Maybe it is best that we are all lost, and that we are lost together. Because I can promise you, you’d rather be bombed in a college bar lying about how “rent isn’t that bad in Wrigleyville if you take into account all the amenities,” than find yourself trapped in a conversation with an overly-excited massage therapist about his freelance work that wraps up with advice on getting your own certification from Kaplan University.