HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! /

I's Independence Day here in the U.S.A but I'm not in the mood for celebrating. Afterall, I am going on 23 and still mooching off my parents. It's not something I am proud of. There is a big part of me that wants to leave and get on with the struggle of making money.

Yet there is also a part of me that is unbelievably happy. I love having so much free time to just explore. It doesn't hurt that I have an unlimited broadband connection here. I'm so amazed at some of the things I've stumbled upon just by surfing wikipedia. Whoever put links on the articles is a genius! Now, I can watch whatever I want (and some things, I really don't care for) on You Tube. I'm stunned at what people all over the world are up to on their free time. I've also come across so many thoughts and lots of shocking art by blog hopping.

It's like everyone is involved in a personal movement. The movement? Self-preservation through fame or notoriety. There is no need for us to survive, so now the game is all about who can last the longest. Who can leave their mark in the world? Who gets the most hits on the internet? How many people have downloaded your video? Trivial questions trigger big thought balloons and I love having the time to sit with it.

I also love midnight talks with my bro. I love having the time to impart my limited tennis skills to him. I love waiting up for Aqua Teen Hunger Force and trying to explain the raunchy jokes of the Family Guy. If not for anything else, he would have made this break worth it.

He's growing up and asking all sorts of questions. How I wish I had someone like myself to talk to when I was growing up. Maybe, it wouldn't have taken me this long to figure stuff out. I'm so glad to have taken this time to be part of the last legs of his childhood. To quote Hermione in Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets, "Everything is going to be different now". I give it a year. After that, he'll stop listening to me and lump me up as "uncool" like his parents.

All this easy living is shameful to a self-confessed megalomaniac. But I'm happy going to Walmart and slipping in a magazine for my mum to buy. I'm happy with my Krispy Kremes and Ben and Jerry's, watching my favorite series Arrested Development... all of which were given by mum. Life as a dependent is awesome. I might not have much to celebrate in terms of being independent, but I do feel a sense of freedom.

I'm free to be happy and to relive being a child when I'm pushing 23.