Tradeoff

The present author gave up the privilege of college education - thousands of dollars a year many are told from a young age, cruelly but realistically, are unobtainable to have - in order to enjoy the privilege of travel. Of seeing more countries in one's 20s than most see in a lifetime. Of course, the present author now can both no longer travel, nor afford a 4 year degree - much less achieve comfortably, either - so the tradeoff, in retrospect, was more of a loan against the future, in desperation, to try to create any semblance of enjoying the present. The memories of the unique and wonderful experiences are there, but they've been replaced by rust spots on an old Camry, the knowledge that a 2 year degree is meaningless (so say the stats, the data, the present author's father, friends, and more), and realization that if it was supposed to be fun while it lasted - said economic fortune and geographical privilege - and it wasn't, really, then what does that leave the rest of life, when even said luxuries are gone, replaced by the mundanity of a 100+ year old house, a breaking down car, a breaking down body, a passion (writing) whose ability to conjure up worlds and characters has disappeared, possibly forever, storytelling fun enough until everything needed to be said had been said (poorly), and what was left was staring, like we all do, at an LED screen, cursing the blank space, the social media, the newscaster, the world.