Not Yet

In high school, they told me you gotta go to college
 Because those blue-collar jobs don't exist anymore
 In college, I learned that a four-year degree
 Is about as useful as a high school diploma was before
 Some of my friends got jobs in coffee shops
 Some fell to making music or writing poems
 Some took out loans and went back to school
 Some of them just went home
 Me, I was afraid of getting stuck
 Everybody said don't get anybody pregnant
 And don't get a job in front of a computer screen
 Not yet
 Not yet
 Not yet
 You've got your whole life ahead of you
 Enjoy it while you still can
 That's what everybody told me, as if youth were the last
 Gasp inside a plastic bag
 So I clung to my freedom greedily
 I cut up all the credit cards they sent me
 I kept my distance from long-term leases
 I wanted a dog, but I never got one
 I left my options open for so long
 So long, they started drying out
 When someone suggested I stick around
 I'm not ready
 Not yet
 Not yet
 Not yet
 I was proud of having nothing but a bed in the back of my truck
 And a Coleman stove,
 and a sleeping bag - almost nothing that I couldn't give up
 I could do almost anything I
 wanted, I could drive down to Mexico mañana
 But I found myself wishing I had a little more that I could hold onto
 I wanted something that I can't let
 go, or replace at the next Sinclair
 There's a girl I miss
 With silver streaks
 In her hair
 Making me wish
 I was there
 I pull off the interstate, and drive to her house
 Park at the curb and try to get a grip
 I curl my knuckles and I hitch up my heart
 And knock on her front door
 "It's me," I say, smiling blindly
 Feeling familiar and out of sorts
 I recognize the smell of her cigarettes
 And some of the same plants on her front porch
 I jiggle the doorknob and say, "Let me in"
 I hear muffled voices and shuffled steps
 Then she says, "No, don't come in
 I'm not ready, not yet"