The Golden Child. in Whey and Sonic Screwdrivers.

I remember a conversation when I was 17. I was in the car with my dad and my sister. The gist of the conversation was how she had screwed up a lot in life (yet not really for 21), but it didn’t matter because I was the Golden Child.

At least, up to that point, such a moniker didn’t mean much to me. I understood what my sister meant. I was the ‘smart’ one, she was the ‘dumb’ one. I could get away with anything, but she couldn’t. It didn’t mean much because I had done nothing with my life at all at that point. She was a Failure, but it didn’t matter because I would Succeed. Of course, I sided with her. I was well aware of the preferential treatment I had. And in the case of Dad VS Sister, I will always side with my sister. Grades don’t mean shit; I’ll always look up to her.

I dropped out of college. Ah, but the Golden Child would finish eventually. I accrued two associates at a county college. The Golden Child was just biding his time, finding himself. I found myself, alright, but not the way I wanted to. I was engaged, and then wasn’t. I was supposed to ride off into the sunset, hitting those checkmarks of life. But I didn’t.

I talk around things, so I’ll just say it. It hurts my dad has made it abundantly clear he doesn’t care about me as a person and only cares that I finish college. I’m over thirty; you can fathom I didn’t expect it to be this way. But it’s not like I’m lazy or incapable. I promised myself I wouldn’t be 30, living in my parent’s basement, unemployed, playing everquest. Instead, I was 29, moved out, working full-time and schooling full-time, and playing everquest2 with my then-fiancé. I was going to show everyone, I was going to prove everyone wrong.

And then I didn’t.

Everything fell apart.

The Golden Child failed.

Look, we can talk about self-created validation. But wouldn’t it have been nice to do things My Way for once, and in the process get him off my back?

But that’s not the way it happened. And that’s why I keep turning to constructs of The One, again and again. Constructs of someone beating the odds. Fictions of people doing things their way. Beating society, beating the expectations on them. And so I have to find my own way, and that’s scary as hell. I don’t WANT this. But I also don’t know what I want.

And so the self-designed Lone Warrior will plant his feet into the ground and keep fighting. It’s either that or suicide, and as the years have shown, that alternative just isn’t going to happen.

(As an aside, my sister actually finished her bachelors in vet tech in her early 30’s, so I still actually have time to “beat” her.)