Existential Crisis #511

Well, I don't know what to do with myself
Just don't know what to do with myself...
-The White Stripes

Clearly, the current plan isn't working. I'm unhappy to the point of nausea. But what in the hell am I supposed to do? I really just want to live in a tipi (or cabin) by the river, but it's difficult to raise an adolescent in a tipi at this place and point in history. Furthermore, he is doing very well -- so I don't want to undermine that.

I could swallow my churning bile for 4 more years and just get him through to college. But then what? I still have to take care of him financially -- no tipis yet. I could get an Associate's R.N. from one of the city colleges and join the traveling nurses when Dono goes away...I like moving around and meeting people.

I could pursue a postgrad at U of C in linguistics -- in their program you study a dominant and a more obscure language and come up with some research project. I could continue with Spanish, start learning French and some West African Bantu languages . Then I could travel the Americas studying syncretism in culture, language, music and religion -- going places and meeting people. I'd also have to finagle a really excellent grant.

I could do a combined postgrad at Northwestern in linguistics and psych and enact my early intervention of speech pathology in the treatment of certain severe mental illnesses idea.

I could put together a little circus like Clint Eastwood in Bronco Billy traveling from town to town, trying to make ends meet and keep my band of misfits together -- but that brings me back to the whole college tuition thing.

I could become a torch singer, traveling from town to town, playing sleazy lounges and having one night stands with sleazier men. My original lyrics would often treat the fleshy isolation that haunts me in my (potentially) thirsty, broken-hearted gypsy life. One day my pianist would discover my corpse wrapped around a whiskey bottle, a photo of my son, and the lyrics to my opus about the one that got away. The pianist would send my ashes to my mother in a Ramada Inn envelope, record my song and win a Grammy. (Pardon me, I got carried away by the pulpiness.)

Any ideas out there?