It’s one thing to point to the simple things like always needing doctors or people to collect the trash. Large communities run right up against everyday problems that become very large very quickly. But what happens when you scale it down? How much more can you get away with without a community and still make a case that things are basically okay?
Small example, I’m looking for parking. I haven’t exhausted every avenue, but even trying to text the handful of people I know regarding it, precisely one responds. I don’t even know people with driveways, or one’s with dispositions that care to answer texts attempting to help me with a practically throwaway problem.
But it’s been a longer standing issue than that. I remember having a group that used to go dancing on $2 Tuesdays, before dancing was outlawed. I used to get at least a handful to show up to the events and get-togethers I would create before they all moved away or it started to sink in just how broke and tired they really were. I’ve leaned on the phrase, “You can’t make new old friends” before to try and differentiate an allegiance or spirit you might conjure with history, and I think it’s been to my peril. As if on the other side any of the half-drunk acquaintances I impress at the bar truly give a shit the next morning.
I’ve been having these feelings of just starting over. Not moving for the sake of it, but moving away from everyone who can’t even be bothered to respond to a text with, “no.” I don’t like the people I’ve tried over and over again to get on board with any number of things. I’m tired of being told one thing before someone disappears or flaunts the exact opposite of what they told me. It’s not as if I’m under some illusion that it gets better in a different town or state, but at least it’s not the same people gutting me one empty-headed prick at a time.
I think about the amount of things I’ve offered or tried. Small time mutual savings or investment account. I recall a friend needing a plane ticket for a wedding or something, and everyone was eager to foot the bill. Come help me build super cheap random things and get a working knowledge of sustainable practices out on the land. Not cool enough I guess. I’ll buy the drinks! Come out for an hour or 2 any day of the week. Can’t be bothered. Bowling? You hate it. Not everybody, but certainly most everybody. I’ve had this ridiculously naive goal of creating or re-creating a community that no one wants to be a part of.
I can blame myself for exhibiting too much “hope” that once enough evidence built up they’d change their minds and get on board. But phrased that way, we’re pretending that’s how people make decisions politically or religiously in the exact same manner as they conduct their life. I got my spine tapped twice so I could afford land. I couldn’t exhibit a greater personal pain in service to the larger picture, literally, I broke my nervous system for weeks. I’ve invited people to live here and out there for free or next to free. These are people who habitually cry about money. These are people who feel their creative and stimulated lives dying. These are young enough people with the wrong kinds of health concerns because they sit all day and eat like shit. These are people I’ve let talk considerable amounts of unfair shit about me that’s mostly gone unanswered, because I oriented myself to focus on their better qualities.
I was talking with my dad this weekend about how every day is the work towards what you believe in. I had to train myself to be patient enough to see my goals at the edge of my fingers for sometimes years, but I didn’t lose sight of them. I guess the ones who figured out how to really help themselves managed to escape this soul sucking wanna-be town. My excuse is perpetually, “no one cares to help me.” Perhaps I should have focused on getting the fuck away as a means to really help myself.
So I have to be contented with the spotty communication and what feel like lengthy discussions to somewhere ill-defined, because my new partner made the 2 hour drive and actually showed up. I have to keep telling myself, “they’re just busy” or “they don’t think they have an answer so didn’t bother” instead of something more personal and catty. I have to keep being reminded that people have their lives and informal meet-ups and placid conversation supplements ours. I need to go.
I feel I’ve been working to allow other people to breathe as easy as I do in being able to even marginally attack the “big everybody issues.” I didn’t count on people not wanting to breathe. Everyone with a job doesn’t have money. Each day free offers a better distraction than something I put on the table. I find myself helping, talking to, or spending the most time with people that don’t even seem to really like me, I guess, because at least they’re honest about it? Or at least their poorly executed or selfish goal still constitutes a goal, and I’m beyond starved to see fucking something get done.
Alone in a tick-ridden field with a .9mm protecting my shit in a broken moving van is as tangible a salvation I can claim. Then after enough months or years of delivering food for $4.50 at a time I’ll have enough to “fail forward” on something I won’t be able to achieve anymore alone then than I can now. If only I could have fucked up and had a kid so I could temper my dreams and goals earlier, right? What am I doing?
