Music Monday: "Time/Breathe Reprise"

Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

The passage of time is something that has been crossing my mind quite a bit lately. It's a milestone year in some respects, as I am approaching the age of 35 in a little over two months.

Instead of viewing it with excitement, I just feel...a bit cold. Odd. Detached from it.

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

The last two years have been lost for me. Instead of advancing professionally, I found myself forced out of my field against my will by the capricious whims of someone who had no understanding of what my job was on a day to day basis. I know I'm treading a bit of well-trodden ground here with that statement, but it is a fact.

And I look and I look, now 11 years removed from my graduation from my master's program and I see...what, exactly? Someone who bounced around the field, moving from student activities to residence life to academic affairs and not really making progress. I seem to be the outlier; the regression towards a mediocre mean.

People I went to school with (or their spouses or both) either have received PhDs or are in the process of working towards them. They're written or starred in films and documentaries, are completing marathons and 5ks. They're getting promotions at work, have started major side projects following a passion that they have, or have fabulous jobs where they get to travel lots and make an impact on seemingly a macro level.

I...spent two days on Jeopardy! six and a half years ago.

I was always adamant that I shouldn't worry about judging myself against my peers and friends. And I am truly happy for them when I get to see how successful they are and the great and glorious things that they manage to accomplish.

But I'm also jealous because I feel like I've done absolutely nothing.

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

And yes, I do think you can be sincerely happy for someone and jealous at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive things.

Maybe it's just a fear of failure. It could be the lack of a work ethic. It could be just making up excuses in the 21st century. I don't know. I go on and on about how I want to do this or how I should write a book, and I get started...and then the whole project peters out.

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say 

I guess I just expected to be farther along in life than I am today. To say things have gone sideways is a facile yet probably accurate rendering of things in many respects. At least in a professional sense; domestically on the homefront, one always wants things to be better, and I am lucky to have an understanding, patient and loving spouse and a (sometimes) well behaved boy. That aspect of my life is fine, and I cannot quibble about that sphere of my existence.

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells

I just wish I was more at home in where I am going outside of the house.