I gather a lot of writers have that basic sense of having a lot of explaining to do.  Confessions and mea culpas, admissions of finding oneself lost.  Writing from the belly of the beast, I look back at college days.  "I wasn't serious enough.  I drank too much.  I never formulated a plan, but a highly vague one which one could never possibly carry through with."  There was an early fascination with poetry and literature, probably because at that point you sense you need to improve on your analytical skills if you are going to enter the adult world.

My brother was in his senior year in college.  His buddies proudly drank with gusto and liked to carry on, and that was a role model when I was looking for a way to proceed, an identity I fell into.  Of course.  It was a matter of wanting to fit in, be a cool kid.  And that style probably fit him and his friends a lot better than it did little brother.  I was a studious type, despite it all.  I knew where the library was.  It took me a long time to read things.  I'd pore over texts.  My papers would be late, as I looked for the key to understanding.  Drinking was my way of being lazy, I suppose.  And I know my regrets of passing up on a lot of the opportunities afforded going to an enviably good small liberal arts college.

As the years proceeded, it became increasingly obvious that I had no professional plan.  I had not formulated a way by which I could contribute to society, and I fell into the restaurant business.  My mother cried, and told me it would break my heart, but I wouldn't listen.  "I wanted to be a writer."  As if it by doing so I would redress all the wrongs of the world.  Tandemly, they were horrible choices.  And that was just how I came to town, looking for something to do, I didn't know what, needing to pay the rent and feed myself.  I made a waste out of my education.  I bussed tables, pretended to write, and then they made me a bartender.  That was over twenty years ago.

I would gather that I am a weak person.  I'm too easily talked into things.  The glass of wine talks to tired legs and the beaten relief that finally comes when the last customers leave, though I make the most out of enjoying their company, knowing that I will end up facing misanthropic silence and the History Channel or Anthony Bourdain.  It would be nice to get home and have the energy to read, but this doesn't happen so often.

It's often said, nice guys finish last.  Being a bleeding heart liberal and a fervently imaginative type, I took my bartending duties in the neighborhood where I landed as something having a spiritual nature, a shadowy imitation of, well, you know, Christ amongst sinners, or, being sat at the lowest end of the table, so that one day my host would invite me to come sit at the higher place.  And so, noticed principally by the lonely and the outcastes for his generosity, as foolish young people are tolerant of crazies, I made my bit of cash, paid the rent, and carried on as I could.  I was a good neighbor on days off.

Well, so much water under the bridge, what do you do now, you wonder.  You go to work.  You buy your groceries so you can eat.  You have your green tea, the wine is good for your cholesterol, and maybe it's not the worst thing engaging in a physically active job interacting with a lot of people and a lot of people who know you in some way.  You do yoga, and read things spiritual, and keep wondering what you are going to do with yourself when you grow up.