Everyone is always asking, asking, asking, that dreadful question with the impossible answer. “So what are you going to do? Where are you going after high school? What kind of work do you plan on?” Some teacher or one of my parents will throw this at me about every day now. For some people, or so I’m told, these questions are easy to answer honestly. Just how it’s so easy? I have yet to find that answer as well.

I answer a little differently each time. Sometimes I’ll take the comical approach, trying to diffuse the situation, and say something along the lines of “Oh, I’ll sell drugs, or be a pimp I guess.” Which is a real laugh if you know me. Usually though, that laugh is followed by “but no, really, like what do you want to do?”

Defeated, I will usually mutter something along the lines of “Well I plan on going to college and figuring something out.” The word “college” calms everyone down; no one wants to be responsible for a high school graduate! How terrible! If I feel a little more comfortable with the interrogator, my parents for example, I’ll go a little further. “I’m thinking about writing I guess.” My hands fumble in embarrassment when they resume.

“Oh, like for a newspaper or a magazine? That’s a good career.”

“No Mom. I want to write novels.”

“Oh, like Bestsellers? Like mysteries or crimes? Fantasy?”

“No Grandma, I want to write things that will be classics. I want to write a book that will describe our generation. A book that will be read 50 or 100 years from now; it probably won’t even be popular while I’m alive.

“Oh, oh, well… what are you really going to do though?”

But, to not one of my questioners, have I ever told my true intentions. They would think they’d failed me. They would think I was crazy. They would think, think, think, all those negative thoughts. Of course they would be too occupied to really decipher the subject. One day though, one day I’ll tell them. One day soon, (Senior year is about nine months away), I will have to let them know. “Mom, Dad, Teacher, Counselor, I don’t want to go to college. I don’t want to have a steady job. I don’t want a nice house and a fancy car.”

“Mom, Dad, Teacher, Counselor, I’ve done my duty to you. I’ve given you top fifth percentile test scores and a 4.0. But, now I’m done with all that fake-face hum-drum you call success. I want to spend nights under the stars. I want to hitch-hike from San Francisco to New York City. I want to write for hours in some friend’s home after having a grand party with a bunch of new strangers who became friends.

Out there, out in the real going world, I want to find all the secrets and write them down. I want to live. Have you read On The Road? Have you read Siddhartha? All this just isn’t for me know. I thank you for everything though.”

They would look at me with unhinged jaws. They would protest, and “set me straight. They would absolutely force me to follow their path. But I would already be gone.