[1218] Back To Reality

It’s been a full weekend. My friend and I went to all 3 days of Riot Fest, open to close, with one after show at The Cobra Lounge for Senses Fail. My feet hurt. I swore after our last festival that we should stop doing festivals, especially since both of us enjoy smaller venues and the energy you can’t find exhausted at the end of a field watching a video. I took off today because I work in Indianapolis and live even farther away. Thankfully, it rained, because I was intending to pick up furniture in service to my budding rental property endeavor.

The festival has a running “joke” about how much it sucks, yet every band that plays regularly expresses how much they love it or how it is their favorite. It’s all over the place genre wise. They put similar artists against each other. The layout, even as it seems to make a certain kind of sense, betrays another (like, maybe 2 water stands and the ability to walk around both sides of the stages). Overall the spirits were high, people tolerable, and beyond the miserable task of escaping back to parking, another one for the memories and lists.

For me, it marks the 66th-69th concerts, comedy shows, or theater performances I’ve been to this year. 371st since 2022. I got a lot of new concert T-shirts. I paid way too much for food. I won Snoop and Dre’s drink sunglasses. My nose was lightly tanned.

The idea of returning to work didn’t fill me with the usual dread. It’s sunk in in a deeper way that doing this, going to concerts, making the drives, budgeting for the indulges, is what I’ve made my “real world.” I do it more than I do anything related to my job. I already have built so much to ensure my overall comfort or preferences, I’m just stacking experiences and seeing where they take me. It feels like a different kind of power. I’m not rich, but I’m clearly privileged. I work hard, when I must, but I’m not an ironworker like my dad. I’m not in the courts or on the front lines of fighting fascism.

I’ve been so relatively focused on shaping my existence for so long. I don’t know that I take it for granted, especially because I write. I think I’ve seen every decision it’s taken to get where I am, and I have a healthy appreciation for what it’s going to take to get me where else I want to go. I still want a real community that focuses on group goals. I still want to go to sleep and wake up when I please. I still want the space to engage all of my creative ideas and hobbies at once. I want to create part of the machine that keeps the fascist impulse in us all at bay.

It’s been weird trying to figure out the nature of the tired over the last few days. The only thing that really hurt was my feet. Thankfully, I’ve been doing yoga at least once a week for the last few months. There’s a degree of physical tiredness, but it’s not like I couldn’t walk, stand, drive, or manage to move furniture if I had to today. I was deeply appreciative I got to come home and sleep. It’s now 1:35 and I’m to be up in about 6 hours to go to work. At once I still think I’d enjoy more recuperation, but I also feel like again I’ve proven to myself I’m not that old and could stand to be more involved, moving, dancing, or otherwise.