Someday you will realize that you too are boring. You might have been fun and exciting in college when you were drinking with friends. Maybe you were exciting in high school, gossiping about classmates. Or maybe you were only exciting in early childhood, when everything was exciting to everyone. The color purple was exciting. At 28, I feel that I have become boring.

Sure, I was a crowd favorite in college, getting drunk and performing various acts of idiocy. Then I fell in love and everything was new and fun because I was doing it with someone I loved.

Then you graduate, get a job, and realize that you can no longer fall back on mom & dad. Maybe this happened to you after high school, and I pity you if it happened before then. For me, it was not until I purchased my first home that I realized I was boring.

I no longer have stories to tell about the crazy things I have done, or what might have happened to friends and acquaintances. Instead, I work 8:30 to 5:30 every day. I pay bills. I perform maintenance on the house. Sometimes (for a bit of excitement) I go to a museum, out to eat, or visit family. Times sure are crazy.

In my spare time I will play video games, read, watch movies, work on the house, paint, or create other artwork. At one point I was working towards an advanced degree, but this was a full-time job in and of itself, and left no time for chores and my wife (who is a job unto herself, albeit a job I love and elected to take on).

I lament that I do not skydive. I do not bungee jump or go whitewater rafting. I will go hiking, weather-permitting, but it is not the thing to tell stories of, as we do not live in the developing times of Ansel Adams and Theodore Roosevelt. We have walking trails and bed & breakfasts nowadays.

So now my wife and I discuss when the best time to have a child might be and I wonder if I am considering a child because I have always wanted one, because she wants one, to give myself a sense of purpose, or if it’s just to have something to talk about with others. “Look, my baby’s walking.” or “My baby’s talking.” become the only things to discuss, and then I am truly resigned to the background. Unimportant; then again, maybe I always have been, there are over 6 billion of us, after all.

Someday, you too will discover that you are bored. Maybe it will be a mid-life crisis. Maybe it will be as you walk down the aisle. If you’re lucky, maybe you will not realize it until your ticker begins to sputter. But in the end, it feels like it’s all been done and we’re just going through the motions.

Even this post feels boring. Back to work.