What. Do. I. Want.

I feel bitter and uncharacteristically disenchanted with life of late. The closer I get to the end of law school the more I realize that I’ve been acting out of a sense of duty for longer than I care to admit. I gave up on the whole “what do I want” question a long time ago.
Christ, for over ten years of my life “they” acted like I should get a Nobel Prize just for waking up every day. I wanted nothing more than minimal, functional, happiness: it’s all I’ve felt entitled to.
And then I got into law school. And “they” seem to assume I became not only “functional” but super-functional overnight. Because, really, most functioning people don’t go to law school, much less the people that get Nobel Prizes just for waking up every day.
And how did I get here? Blind spite. Didn’t think I’d graduate from high school? Fuck you. Didn’t think I’d go to college? I’ll make the Dean’s List every fucking term. Didn’t think I’d get a job? I’ll get into law school.
Everyone loves a bastard*. Especially a bitter yet witty bastard. Shows the rest of the country club how compassionate “they” are. But when the bastard turns out alright? Well, there goes the tarnish on the silver spoon, no?
Bitterness, what is it good for (absolutely nothing). Got me through school, I guess. But now? What is it good for? What do I want, really?
Just admitting it. Because I’m usually so optimistic and I know it gets on everyone’s nerves. And the truth is, right now I could really give a fuck about…anything. Right now, I just want to get out of here. Go for a drive. Go for a trip. Move. The thing about being called “good” and “loyal” and “honest” and “strong” all the time is that sometimes I feel fucking invisible, driven by duty and honestly dishonest. The happy advocate. Finish school; it would be a shame to waste their money. Say what you should, not what you mean. When you laugh the world laughs with you, when you cry you cry alone. Etc.
Because what do I want? When is the last time I really thought about it? When is the last time I felt like I could say it without apologizing? When was the last time I felt like I could be expressive without someone wondering if it was my “disorder”? When was the last time I defined my happiness separate of what was best for someone else?
What. Do. I. Want.

* In all fairness to my mother, I do not fit the technical definition of a bastard. I know who my father is, he knows of me. My mother married him, and while she occasionally refers to it as her “rebellious marriage”, 6 years is a long “rebellious marriage” I think. But bastard rolls off the tongue easier than “fatherless child” or “fatherless girls” as when my high school sweetheart’s mother said, “You know how fatherless girls are.” And she was right, you know, I did deflower her son. But, her son had a father and a mother and he deflowered me too, after all.