Oh boy, I’m back home. I wasn’t gone for terribly long, but long enough to register the contrast between feeling perpetually “stuck” and “waiting” otherwise engaged in responsibilities and less-than-fulfilling thoughts and exercising the illusion of freedom with a friend over drinks, mini golf, and delicious food.
I come home to a stained bathroom. I broke the handle on my sink faucet when it was frozen before I left. When it got warm, eruptive chaos ensued. It appeared to Byron who came upon the mess that the flow of water was dangerously close to the space heater I had running in an attempt to ensure the cats’ water stayed unfrozen. I get to imagine whether it would have simply shorted out and blown a breaker, or burned everything down.
The GFCI outlet that popped, wisely insisted upon by Jim, housed the series of extensions that power my refrigerator. It was off long enough to have many sticky things melt, leaving a mess that I haven’t even entertained the thought of when to bother addressing. The spewing water drenched the cat food and isn’t suitable to drink, so today I’ve been finding puke and shit leaks on various parts of the floor. It’s all feeling a little Final Destination-y.
My friend Brandy in Orlando is perhaps the easiest person I can talk to about an array of topics that have nothing to do with social work. I had to pause several times and point out how much I appreciated that we were able to talk about shows we’ve seen or when music and musicians have found us at different periods in our lives. She’s a doctor and teacher, so I got insight into college students from freshman through grad school, as well as university politics. We fluidly made reference to dozens of authors, speakers, thinkers, and creatives and didn’t miss a beat with those awkward dead/polite faces you catch from people who don’t independently seek out new information or interesting things to learn about.
She’s one of those people who are so smart it’s easy to feel crazy and ask yourself too many “how” and “why” questions because you can’t quite wrap your head around the general ignorance and depravity of the world you’re made to navigate. We’re able to speak freely regarding our relationships and perspectives and how to pragmatically achieve greater happiness and stability. She’s as powerful an example as I could have asked for as far as reminders that we’re never really stuck, and when you’re willing to assess and move on your situation, you can do an immense amount of work, emotional or otherwise, in short order.
It’s New Years Eve. We’re prompted to think about the past year and what we want going forward. I want more structure. I am in less debt than I was last year. I am in an easier job. I’ve got more things already bought and on the menu book wise and by way of entertainment. I’ve got more things to fix and pay for regarding my home environment, and a more concerted effort to tackle them. The things I’m doing by way of indulgence still register with a degree of superficiality. That is, it’s great that I can afford the concert, but I’m still in regular need of Byron’s or Planet Fitness’s shower. I bought a car off Hussain that added another 2 weeks to my “have to work” narrative. My health insurance is about avoiding fines, not insuring health.
I put together a list of people to cold-call regarding looking for clients. It’s 800+ numbers long. Flying from Indianapolis to Orlando, it was another nice visceral reminder of just how many people there are. Thousands you can see at once along highways. City-centers lit up. Every single person is a world unto themselves and they are connected to everyone else in big and small ways in an infinitely changing and dynamic landscape. I thought to myself about the power and impact of music and celebrity when I looked over the landscape. How many of those little dots have never heard of Adam Sandler or Tom Hanks? If I blasted “We Are the Champions” from the plane, I bet everyone could sing along. There’s a universality that you can bolster your behavior with to access that which connects everything. It’s why fascism will always be an option. “Hate” transcends every little point of light. The work you can do with the ambiguity towards the unknown remains the same.
In the span of a few hours I went from a beautiful day with great company and an excellent meal to the rain and gray and psychological trappings of Florida’s insecure twin, Indiana. Florida has all of the same stores, but also higher-end and better ones. It has the same people, but the crazy is more diverse. You need distance from what you’re used to as often as you can get it. The things that need to remain true and what you’re really after need to shine brightly and be just as obvious to you as it should be to clean up where the cat took a shit outside the box.
I know who and what I want to trust and why. I know that if I’ve been led to hell through someone else’s negligence, ambivalence, or malice, it wasn’t because I lead with a judgmental or spiteful attitude in my attempt to connect or build. The friends who I can continue to engage in the mutually assuring and uplifting exchange massively outweigh the baggage of the ones who can’t be bothered. It’s a state of perpetual mourning when you think about how vital that is to your well-being and how callously it’s been rendered mute or worthy of resentment.
I’ve never wanted to be the person who’s like, “I’ve got A-level friends, B-level friends….” Etc. I’ve discussed being “on the level,” to be sure, but that’s about an awareness and capacity more than how much or whether I want to bother with you as an individual. I clearly don’t need friends where we have much in common besides work or a shared disposition even if I’ve been starving for years to talk to another encyclopedia. I’m going to keep doing things. I’m going to try to return to a kind of deliberate enthusiasm for more grindy type of things that will hopefully make me feel more stable.
It occurred to me that I had the energy, and probably still do, to give and receive from considerably more than most are prepared to. This analysis prompted some by the various pathologies associated with those in the poly community. I don’t “need” anything I’m unwilling to work in order to achieve for myself. I’ll fly or drive to the friends that are worth it. I have an incredibly robust understanding of the character traits I respect and need to see reciprocated in order to thrive. I draw a deep and resounding enthusiasm from the opportunity to spend time with them. That’s not something to be squandered and begged for. That’s not something to be afraid and ashamed of as though some petty slight or pithy detail, floating above so many ant-like figures from a plane, should be the governing rule.
What I can’t fix, at least yet, is people recognizing for themselves the same potential freedom and what the work looks like to orient as though you’re not at the mercy of your circumstances. You’re too busy? You’re too tired? You don’t have the money? If you’re reading this, you have at least one friend who has the proclivity to create worlds where the opposite is true. But what’s that really mean if you’re not friend enough to yourself to even recognize what’s being offered?
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