Once, I wandered a crooked path through the twilight of mediocrity. It wasn’t a choice I made myself, but seemingly one that I inherited as a member of a lower middle-class family. My station in life seemed signed, sealed, and delivered, then neatly folded into a filing cabinet beside the birth certificate that called me by a name I never would’ve chosen for myself. Eventually, I grew weary of sauntering along the gilded seams of that peculiar chasm between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, where everything is too comfortable to revolt but too hollow to adore.

For most of my life, I was a disgruntled denizen of this suburban purgatory of the Middle Class. I wasn’t quite struggling, yet certainly not thriving. I just became comfortably numb and vaguely itchy for something different. So, I led a phantasmal existence, unwilling to follow the herd’s choreography. Serving my assigned role in this convoluted theater play was a veritable mixed bag of wonders, pitfalls, and revelations that left me suspended in a perpetual state of insignificance.

I’d wander past manicured lawns of the Boston suburbs that whispered “achievement” but screamed “conformity,” each house a clone of its neighbor, each porch light flickering like a dying firefly trapped in a mortgage contract. Afternoons brought the minivan parades, those maternal command centers ferrying precocious children to soccer and piano and therapy with unsettling efficiency. Life seemed all very polite. But I couldn’t help feeling like I was watching a performance in which everyone forgot their lines and improvised with cliched quotes and passive-aggressive potluck exchanges.

In the temples of almighty Capitalism, what we call the shopping centers. I’d bear witness to our strange liturgy. The scent of soft pretzels mingled with the bitter perfume of credit card debt. I sometimes caught myself worshipping materialism just a little bit, too. The dopamine hit of a clearance sale is real, after all, and even I once counted myself among the Free Market Faithful. But just as quickly, the sugar-spun joy would melt on my tongue, leaving nothing but the taste of buyer’s remorse and Auntie Anne’s salt.

At parties, the sacred gatherings of the Middle Class, I often hovered in corners – half guest, half ghost. Social butterflies flitted under twinkling lights, their inhibitions stripped by boxed wine. Secrets better kept spilled with the sangria. Laughter turned to confessions, then to slurred laments about jobs we hated, spouses we tolerated, and dreams we archived for “someday.” I never knew if these nights were supposed to be catharsis or choreography, and eventually I realized they were a bit of both, but more of the latter.

Eventually, Last Call came, and designated drivers ushered their inebriated peers to their rides home. Some continued to ramble on, mostly unaware of how foolish they would look and sound. Yet, many more were suddenly hushed by the somber realization that Monday morning’s cold splash of fluorescent light would banish whatever revelry remained. We’d soon be back to business casual and Excel spreadsheets.

Why I ever sought comfort in that beige-walled cage known as the office cubicle I don’t really know now. There, I flirted with ambition just enough to earn benefits but not enough to lose my soul. Days bled into weeks, then months, then entire seasons, marked only by an increase in inflation and disaffection with my stalling clerical career.

But one day, inspired by a line from Allen Ginsberg’s “Footnote to Howl,” I found the phrase to best describe my role in that long stretch of wandering years. Alas, I was the Lost Lamb of the Middle Class, a creature of paradox, both entranced and repelled by the trappings of a life teetering precariously between comfort and tedium.

After a few years of living that office life, I began to understand that I wasn’t lost because I had no map. I was only lost because I’d never questioned the destination. At that point, I realized I could no longer be a Lamb, just waiting for my day to join the slaughter. Still wary of the herd, but no longer wandering blindly, I left the cubicle behind for freelance ventures. Even then, I found myself having to settle for mediocrity and lower my expectations even further than before.

Realizing I was still a Lamb didn’t really kick in until the Cancer came and nearly claimed me without warning. It’s a wonder I still survived, but the damage that battle did to me took a great toll. I then tried to slot back into a more Middle-Class mindset and find something special with someone I’d met online. After a few years of that, stockpiling debt and regrets, I gave up on trying to live the way people expected of me. I finally felt like it was time to sacrifice myself to the jaws of defeat. But it wasn’t I who failed the rat race, but the race that had failed me by not being worth running in the first place.

Instead of giving in, I decided to burn my entire life down, burn all the bridges behind me, and take a leap into the unknown. I became a Phoenix, raining destruction upon my entire persona, taking a new name and a chance on someone new. Five years on, it turns out, that old life wasn’t worth living after all. I’m still here, I’m still with her. I’ve finally come to roost at a rural retreat where I can spend my days writing, dreaming, and unlearning all the Middle Class lies.

In naming it, in mocking it, in seeing it as my time as the Lost Lamb, I find power and clarity. As I watch so many Lost Lambs pacing their own backwater, urban, and suburban pastures, I feel for them. But I know underneath all the whitewashed masks they wear, so many of them are plotting their own quiet rebellions. This is what keeps me writing, even with all the losses I’ve sustained: I know I’m not alone, and neither are you, dear reader. If you ever feel lost, remember, as you read these words, a former Lost Lamb walks beside you.

~ Amelia Desertsong