Twenty Three.

I am old now, not really old and not in any sort of relative
comparison, but old enough that the expectations and "pressures" of
life are beginning to confront me and old enough to know that most of
them come to mean nothing at a certain point.

And today, I am happy and whether it is because my closet is full of
expensive things I didn't buy or because there is a giant stack of
books, which I also did not buy, on my bedside which I anxiously await
to read, I'm not so sure.

On my birthday I was away on business with him. And we fought as we
tend to do in small hotel rooms in strange cities. About nothing of
consequence, of course and of nothing I can manage to remember and if
anything maybe out of boredom. At least I usually win.

The truth is, I don't fit in. Not into his mold of what I or someone
like me should be. And not his family's mold where I would
unflinchingly be docile, subservient and unconditionally grateful.
Today I crossed the lobby of the shimmering tower of money making
where we work, hearing his father's voice trail off behind me, because
after all this is a family business. Looking forward, I approached the
stairwell knowing he would follow behind me but desperately hoping he
would not. The air between us is awkward as it always is, but even
more so since I spent the holiday vacation with them at the beach
home, the place where they realized that I would not stoop to their
level of hypocrisy or merely settle in a corner saying nothing, doing
nothing. He made small talk with me on the ascent. And I replied to
his generalizations with an overcompensating joviality. Years ago I
would have spoken very highly of this man but isn't it so funny how
people who spend a lifetime crafting their public persona's quickly
crumble, especially as time allows for pieces of the truth to
accumulate. And suddenly, instead of a glorified patron saint, before
you stands a mere human whose embittered reality seems only sad. I
don't want to fit in to this.