the color grey

I wake to a grey fog. 

I drive through the perpetual gloom, tail lights gleaming red before me and stretching out into a long, long line of glaring color that eventually vanishes into the mist. Red means stop, yet we all creep onward. Just like yesterday. Just like tomorrow.

I am tired down to my bones.

....

I remember when I first realized that grown-ups didn't have all the answers. 

It was December 31st, 1999. It was nearing midnight. I was huddled in my bed, clutching the baby blanket I'd long outgrown and waiting. Waiting for what? I couldn't tell you any specifics. It was the end. This thing called Y2K. My parents believed it. They'd stockpiled wheat and sugar in huge white buckets under the house. They'd purchased wheat mills that squeaked as you cranked and cranked and cranked the handle to grind the wheat into rough flour. They'd installed a water pump that I had to pump by jumping up and down and up and down and up and down before water finally came spurting out, icy cold from deep inside the ground. 

What was going to happen? No one seemed to have a solid answer. The vast number of possibilities stretched out before me, but one thing was certain. We were all going to die. 

"Have you heard any news yet?" My mother whispered to the cashier at the movie rental store.

The cashier shook her head solemnly, and they shared a look between grown-ups that children aren't supposed to understand. I stared at the poster of The Spy Who Shagged Me and thought about how I was going to die before I figured out what "shagged" meant. 

So 11:59 P.M. found me there in my bed. The rest of my family was in the living room, but I had slipped away. I wanted to be alone when it happened. I watched the hand of the clock tick down the seconds of my life in morbid curiosity and horror. Would it hurt? Would there be meteors? Would things explode? Would the clouds open up and Jesus appear?

12:00 A.M.

January 1, 2000.

Loud cracks and pops sent me scrambling to my window, but it was only the drunks at the local bar lighting off rockets. I watched the colors explode in the sky and then fade away to silence.

I remember being shocked by how uneventful this was, the end of the world. 

I checked the clock again. 12:01 A.M. 

The New Year was here, and nothing had happened. I was still alive. My parents had been wrong.

....

When do you become a grown-up? Is it when you graduate highschool? College? Is it when you get married? Is it when you have your first baby? Is it when you adopt your first pet? Is there a magical number? You can legally smoke once you're 18, drink when you're 21, rent a car when you're 23. Is it one of those?

Grown-ups should have their lives together. They should have the answers. They should know what to do and how to do it. 

But they don't.

And now I'm a grown-up, but in so many ways, I still feel like a child. I don't have any answers. Does anyone?

....

The fog settles in, makes itself comfortable, and the day stays that way. Grey and cold and wet.

I drink three cups of coffee, then two cups of tea. 

The hours drag their feet. The sun never shines. I chew a stick of gum, and pretend that my boss hasn't noticed that I haven't eaten lunch. Again.

The fog is still there when I drive home, but I am made of air. I grip the steering wheel tight and try to ignore the hunger gnawing on my spine. I can handle this gray world with it's endless possibilities and lack of answers. I just have to stay strong and light and empty.

I am tired down to my bones.