I can't seem to break through. While I'm
concerned with sounding like I'm on an infinite loop, I'm more
bothered that I can't walk away happy from the last several things
I've written. There's a nagging deeper point I haven't been able to
dig out.
I had the thought, I think provoked by
some TV show, that by the character's explanation, I'm a perfectly
terrible friend. I think I'm pretty clear an example of how “nothing
changes,” in that I won't treat you differently or it shouldn't
feel “weird” if we haven't talked at length. At the same time,
I'm not the kind of “default supportive” that turns me into a
like machine or cringingly enthusiastic commenter. Increasingly, I've
been finding it harder to even entertain the idea of visiting or
coming through on boasts about having too much time and money. I've
gotten geared up to go see a show or think to myself I should create
a group to try and do something, and then I fall asleep at a random
hour or go back to watching some show.
In a big way, I've gotten burned out on
the prospect of most of my relationships. It's not that I don't want
friends as much as, the basis for which formed my ideas of what
friends were is gone. Friends are now what my mom turned them into; a
handful you ever barely speak to until you manage to alienate them
one by one. I don't want to check-in and share stories of getting by.
I don't want my “social” scene to be comfortably uncomfortable
adults.
I was sifting through the paperwork for
this new job. If I approach it even half as earnestly as I have
everything else I've hated doing in life, I'm going to start making a
lot of money. I'm going to start making a lot of money after already
erasing the things that tend to cost people a lot of money. I don't
know how long it's going to take, or how much I'm going to feel my
work has consumed my time, but given, “I have nowhere to be,” even
in a month or 2 I could start feeling the impact. And then what?
Sometimes you see online rich awkward
Indian or entitled white kids advertise that they'll fly out whatever
remotely cute girl is willing to talk to them. Their concept of
“value” or “power” or “social” is so beyond more broken
than mine will ever manage. At the same time, what if you find
yourself wanting to be busy and rich more than mucking about social
pleasantries? Do I blame them for wanting to get laid and having no
or shitty male role models? Compared to being some parody of a past
that never was, maybe they're on to something.
I was also going through some old blogs
where there were some comments from old friends. One in particular
called “What It Means To Be An Adult” had a former friend chime
in with how I had such an awesome way of framing things and related a
story of basically having to raise her parents. I was railing about
how “adult” it is to be stressed out, too busy, massively in
debt, and then so deluded as to lecture a child you raised for
following your irresponsible example. The friend who commented? One
who invented reasons to be angry at me and threw our living
arrangement into disarray.
What kind of example am I setting in my
lifestyle and relationships? I feel like that Poison Ivy friend. If
we're close enough, I can keep you intoxicated and carrying on, but
introduce something that obstructs the scent, you start to wake up
and get angry that you'd lost control. If you don't have my
influence, then your spouse, or work, or picture of a healthy normal
person story takes over. The point is that I can feel the pull. I can
feel “better” excuses for not seeing people than the ongoing
costs of home building or surprise fuckery of my precarious “gig”
jobs. I used to have all the time in the world, you see, but now I'm
salary and the meeting Monday is mandatory.
I don't want to sit here and pretend
the erosion of my social scene hasn't been an ongoing and comment
worthy process for years. I also don't want to pretend I haven't
always reminded myself of my capacity to flip and start in some new
way of being in an instant. It just feels like I'm going to make it
even harder on myself now. If I'm already emotionally distant or
dead, I'm sort of tightening the screws with a whole new obligation.
The conflict is between living through
examples of when “it” was “good” and certain things made
sense intellectually and emotionally, and then putting either years
or distractions in between them to end up in these isolated realms of
existence. I really do think it's isolated too. You may be better
about phone calling or intermittent visits, but the difference
between having yourself surrounded daily by people you care about or
used to care about, and seeing the facebook version, are worlds
apart. More to the point, having people with a shared goal or vision
for your interactions together is indispensable if we're to imagine
there's a “societal” reason to perpetuate the species that
doesn't solely come from Pixar or religion.
Part of my reticence from half-assing
visits I think speaks to my “do it well or not at all” sense.
It's open to debate the degree in which this is more destructive than
helpful at this point. If I'm going to crisscross the country
visiting, I want to do it all at once or all the time or at whatever
interval I so desire. If it feels like a desperate stab to meekly
“keep in touch” before receding back home for another year or so,
we're already dead. If it feels that way before I leave, it's going
to feel that way during the flight, through every shot, and on the
ride home. I don't want to bring you “work drama” because that's
all I've learned to talk about.
That's the baggage I bring into every
interaction though, isn't it? I drop my entire world into your lap
whether you're prepared to deal with it or not. Here you go, chugging
along with your life, and I'm like, “Everything we're talking about
is dumb!” What? Calm down, you think. If we're not discussing work
or plans to travel next year, why, what else is there? If we don't
don resolved mock pensive matter-of-fact smiles about our slices of
life, how will we recognize ourselves?
I know there's merit to the status quo.
I know a measure of stability and predictability are preferred
against so many other potentially horrendous fates. I think there's
just a world of atrophied potential between “adulting” and cliff
diving. There's ways of interacting with each other, our pasts, and
in service to the future, that isn't dictated by our paycheck,
incidental interactions, or region we were born into. I hand myself
over to things that become veritable all-consuming metrics under
which to conduct my life, and then claim TV or book reading as
passable excuses to keep playing along. I can leave my “gig” job
at any time? It absolutely doesn't feel that way, and that's not how
it affectively plays out in my life. How many excuses for shitty
conditioned behavior can we come up with?
I guess I'm writing this because I
don't know when I'll see you. I'm still lamenting hardly being able
to see me, and I should stop pretending a night out or weekend
reminiscing is what I'm after. I'm still having to double-down on
mere money making until I get my shooting range, or
greenhouse, or camping destination, or mapping program, or dozen
other things I'd rather be doing as often as I've spent in school,
drug studied, delivered food, or will pretend to be helping poor
people.
The best I can do, for now, is my
half-assed trying in service to the handful of people I don't think
are going to surprise me with some bullshit. When they do anyway,
well, you know, of course. It's okay to be acquaintances. It's okay
to be nothing to each other. I know I've become way more committed to
myself after I learned that's what people are. It's not what I like
or want, but it's what I'm doing. I won't even claim it's who I am,
but it's who I'll be. And as long as I forgo deleting my facebook,
you'll get a front row seat to the destruction in real time.
