Writers Jam

My friend is planning to become a bartender for 6 months on a beach in 2035. She wants to make really pretty drinks with those uselessly adorable tiny umbrellas and edible pink glitter in the vodka. At the end of her sabbatical, she’ll do an audit to see if she wants to do it more or else she would go right back to dissecting mice for overexpressed ALS markers. 

I’ve been trying to give myself escape velocity junctions throughout my life. When all your days are sunny and smell of fresh laundry, you start saving for the unexpected rainy day. It’s just a thought here and a skill there. You stash little souvenirs from an unexplored life for when the ground beneath your feet gives way, robbing you of a way home. 

There have been points in my life where every turn flooded my lungs and filled me with the briny disappointment of having let go of myself. When I was younger, I realized grades and acquaintances weren't enough to get me to 18, so I decided to make a film. This highlight reel was going to chronicle all the beauty of life and people I had amassed, and act as a temporary reserve for "happy chemicals" until I figured out how to produce them on my own. I wrote screenplays and drew out storyboards in the margins of workbooks just to keep my mind off of impending doom. I hyperfocused on dolly shots and Dutch angles so that my output could reflect the passion I was incapable of attaining in living. 

Lately, my nightmares echo the late nights of being 15 and feeling scared for a life I’ve yet to live. I’ve been crying about deadlines that won’t ever come and milestones that seem to steamroll me. Life moving along like this, without respite or at least some daydream fodder in sight, is like sleepwalking my way down stairs. I’m going to wake up with bruises and I won’t remember what came to pass. 

Tonight I lie and I think about tangible decisions or life choices that I could be making instead of my current one if this keeps getting worse. I’m stockpiling scenarios and I’m investing early in interesting prospects. And I think I’ve arrived at my new escape velocity point that’s so enticing that I just HAVE to stay to complete it. 

I’m making a list of all the things that only exist as concepts in my brain raised primarily on American pop-culture. All your milkshake diners and soul food joints, your gay dive bars and your roadtrip strip malls. The goal is to try them all by 2035 or take a year off to do just that. One year just dedicated to experiencing all the things I’ve only seen in simulacra, leading to one more decade well-spent. It’s not a perfect, permanent solution to a stifling, ticking psyche. But it’s at least a way out of the stagnant roots that tie you down to terrible life choices made in a desperate daze.