It's been a solid ten years, perhaps longer, since I've spent significant time in my home town on my own terms. Last week changed that; I stayed at the family home and indulged in a meandering dictated by uneven deja vu. I went for a lot of walks around town, just like a young man I knew well used to do every night.
I almost felt like a detective, trying to uncover invisible secrets on the damp pavement. Eventually I'd find one by aligning the same person in the same solitude at the same physical location, separated only by 20 years. The membrane of time stretched so tight that it was borderline transparent. I swear that if I could just stretch out my arm with imperceptible motion and enough grace, I could almost pass through it and gently tug on the collar of my younger self.
To strip out the prose, it was pretty weird. I used to walk those streets at night every night as a teenager, so it was almost overpoweringly surreal to do so again. I guess that's what happens when you reopen a chapter on a life you had closed and put on the bookshelf long ago.
The reason for the trip was for a family reunion in three parts. Part One: a dinner just for the siblings. Part Two: a loud and chaotic party at a rec center with every partner, niece, nephew, parent, and grandparent. Part Three: one-on-one visits with each sibling and parent.
I covered a lot of ground in the week I was there, and apparently they've all covered a lot of their own ground in my absence. In a moment of alarming weakness I asked my brother how work was going. You know, as if he were a polite acquaintance that wasn't my best friend for the majority of my youth. He provided an equally low effort response to my question. Seems like we'd become strangers separated by decades of diverging interests and priorities. Standing two feet apart just highlighted how we are further away than ever.
But whatever the gap between me and my family, it seemed to echo a bigger one between me and my own humanity. For the last couple years I've been hollow, reduced to an unmoored corporeal vessel without a captain or heading. So when my family asked me how I was doing, and I'd repeat a familiar line: although I've been saving for it in some form or another since I was 16, it was becoming readily clear that I would not get to buy a brand new Porsche.
I'd get a semi-sympathetic chuckle in reply to my vehicular lament, surely accompanied by an internal "...this fucking guy..." I don't blame them, they have families, health problems, soaring grocery bills, and have to listen to a schmuck without kids whinge about a luxury sports car dream that was pulling away from him.
That stupid Porsche: a 2024 718 Cayman GTS 4.0 with a manual transmission. White with green stripes, I think. Black accents on the outside. The white leather package really makes the interior look spacious. Maybe I'd spring for the carbon ceramic brakes so that I could track it. New Porsches can be picked up in Germany with a factory tour and driver training, and then you can cruise around Europe before dropping off the car to be shipped home to you. Who wouldn't go for that?
Alas, 2024 is the last year the 718 is in production before they go electric. Funnily enough, even if I could scrounge the cash to buy one, I wouldn't be able to afford the insurance, let alone maintenance. It was a flawed dream to start with. Here's the thing: it really isn't about the car. Even a little bit.
It was dream seeded in teenage soil, and still had that whiff of naïve optimism about it. Something like that helps you look up and away from the ground, you know? But the tree of life is large and grows big sticks to beat the joy right out of you.
After a while I realized why I kept bringing it up: the unfortunate truth is that it was the last solid 'dream' I had in my corner. I'm even running low on ordinary milestones to look forward to. What is there, turning 40/50/60? Honestly, who cares. Retirement? That's becoming less plausible each year. Even if do I get there, what then?
All I really have is working a career that doesn't particularly fulfill me and watching my life as a disillusioned spectator. Maybe I'll change from one sucky job to another to spice things up. I'll get home in the evenings to try and fix a portfolio I'm incapable of feeling good about and then use games as a tattered tarp to cover up my discontent. It's difficult to find relaxation when the rain is still dripping through onto your head.
It turns out that being an adult is much more tedious than I was led to believe. It is, after all, where youth goes to die. Right now I'm really struggling to find purpose or desire, and it's tainting my ability to find enjoyment even in small things. Big things, I'm finally internalizing, are improbable. Medium things just seem to be the mediocre extension of what a person should be doing. You know, travel abroad, get a new TV, seeing that concert, etc.
When I lamented my ex-Porsche to my family, I was actually fishing for some sympathy or maybe even a path to hope. Not having dreams or milestones is kind of debilitating. Never mind just enjoying life; right now I'm without the ability to even want things.
It makes me feel sad for that kid walking his small town streets in the damp darkness. I wish I could've done better for you, man. You delayed every possible gratification in pursuit of unlocking, nay, earning something better. Only now it's really difficult to just find things I'd want to unlock. At least I have plenty of things I should be doing. What's worse is when those two intersect in a twisted way. I should do this thing, it's supposed to make me feel good. And then it doesn't. Oof.
A plot twist occurred on my trip when, the night before flying home home, I finally met with my brother for some Indian food and a walk. We covered a lot of material. Turns out that there's still plenty of common ground, even though there isn't really an evident way to bridge the gap between locations and circumstances. Perhaps not all that once was, no longer is. It just drifts farther away.
I really want to end this with a positive note, like "So maybe I need to make a conscious effort to float back towards the things that are most important, etc etc." But there's a famous quote that comes to mind by one of my all time inspirational figures, Dumpo L. Depression, who declared, "Screw you and the optimism you rode in on."
I'm still adrift as ever, and going 'back home' just confirmed it. Maybe I was hoping to rediscover a lost landmark that would help me get my bearings. Alas, such things are internal and I fear even more navel-gazing isn't the answer. It lies somewhere in the act of doing. Certainly that's something I'm decent at, even though it's hard to feel like I've been actually getting anywhere despite all the thrashing about. Any movement is a sign of life, though, so there's nothing else to be done. All that's left is to pick a direction and attempt to travel with intent.
I just wish I could look forward to a destination. Or anything, really.
---
I struggled with writing and publishing this post. Obviously it's a mess of ideas and themes, but I managed to pull them together in a way that makes sense to me. Worse, though, I really hate that it all boils down to whining about how sad I am. There's little love for the people I encounter who complain about everything but don't try to do anything to change it.
I'm trying, honest.
-Cril
She can't see the landscape anymore
It's all painted in her grief
All of her history etched out at her feet
Now all of the landscape, it's just an empty place
Acres of longing, mountains of tenderness
'Cause she's just like the weather, can't hold her together
Born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
Because it's burning through the bloodline
It's cutting down the family tree
Growing in the landscape, darling, in between you and me
She wants the silence, but fears the solitude
She wants to be alone and together with you
So she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
She saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
'Cause she's just like the weather, can't hold her together
Born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
Because it's burning through the bloodline
It's cutting down the family tree
Growing in the landscape, darling, in between you and me
I want to give you back the open sky
Give you back the open sea
Open up the ages, darling, for you to see
You put the gun into your mouth to bite
The bullet and spit it out
Because it's running in the family
All the rituals between you and me
'Cause she's just like the weather, can't hold her together
Born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
Because it's burning through the bloodline
It's cutting down the family tree
Growing in the landscape, darling, in between you and me
Florence & The Machine - Landscape - Demo
