Comparatively speaking, I have no right to complain. Blind luck saw me born in one of the most affluent nations of the world, to a family that by any standard was fairly well-off. By that token, I belong to an elite group of probably 1% of the most affluent people of the world.

But this apparent wealth is tenuous, and its price is soul-crushing. My parents, while providing a stable home, lived paycheck to paycheck. My father sacrificed his happiness to provide for his family, perhaps waiting for retirement to pursue his passions, but was ultimately robbed of his golden years by that awful disease. I’m heading down the same path, and the longer I continue, the farther I fall into debt and the more bitter I become.

I feel both physically and psychologically trapped. In the physical world, I spend the bulk of my time confined in small spaces: car, cubicle, rooms in a house. Bicycling is the one activity that allows me to breathe air and see the horizon, but even that is stifled by traffic. Economically, I can’t sustain this lifestyle. I’ve pretty much topped out my career’s earning potential, yet the cost of living in my region is so high that it’s impossible to support a family with what should be regarded as a very generous income. I am fortunate to have a decent benefits package that includes health insurance, but this insurance is yet one more thing that traps me in my job. I simply can’t afford health insurance on my own, and all of this makes me feel like I’m an indentured servant.

I’ve been thinking a lot about one of my last posts in which I said I feel like Charlie Brown. Every time I think of it I hear the type-A Anthony Robbins people yammering on about how I need to stop waiting for good things to happen and make them happen myself.

Here’s the problem: I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.

It’s clear that I’m unhappy with things as they are right now. The other night I had a dream about nuclear annihilation, and you know what I did in my dream? I left my family so I could find shelter for myself. Way to go, Mr. Honorable McHonor-Turd. Now I’m waiting for the Armageddon dream trifecta: I’ve had dreams of drowning and nuclear bombs, next up is a full-on War of the Wolds alien invasion.

You know why I liked War of the Worlds so much? It’s because no one had any control over anything. Humans were at the mercy of a vastly superior and deadly alien technology, and the story was simply about human nature when there is no hope or possibility of survival. Now that’s a trope I can get behind. But I digress.

The bottom line is that I’m not cut out for the daily grind. I commute in a tiny motorized box to a building where I spend the better part of the day cooped up in a cubicle (read: tiny box), then back into the tiny motorized box to another tiny building where the hell of autism awaits me.

You know what I want more than anything? I want my childhood back.

When I was a kid we lived next to a giant piece of open space where a creek was fed by a nearby mountain. I miss catching pollywogs and frogs, floating boats down the water, and exploring the huge expanse of open, natural land. I don’t have that anymore, and I feel profoundly sad that my son has nothing close to it.

So what can I do to “make it happen”? I have no clue. There’s no money in grieving for one’s youth.