Who Am I, Anyway?
Right now, I have an unnecessary Home Depot run to look forward to and I’m thinking about that time I met Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the McClure’s Pickles Brooklyn office back in the summer of 2013. The photo taken above (I’m on the right, just so you know) now seems like a lifetime ago. I was a different person in a different environment, still perpetually looking for answers, still awkward, but I was also trying very hard to be a Mets fan. Hell, I don’t even like baseball these days anymore. @@@
Someday’s, everything feels like a burden and I have to force myself out to be social so I don’t end up being a complete shut in as it’s so easy to fall into that rabbit hole. I’ve seen friends and friends of friends around my age who’ve gone on for years without job and the effects are noticeable: Alcoholism, a vicious circle of depression and feeling of worthlessness brought on by said depression (you get the picture), enough selfies on a social media account to get defriended --the other excuse for me to drop someone is because I’m tired of looking at their goddamn kid five, six times a day clogging my Instagram, but I digress.
One of my dad’s best friends recently lost his son --someone who I graduated high school with and practically grew up within those public confines-- after years of an undiagnosed bipolar disorder that may or may not have had anything to do with the cocktail of uppers and downers the cornier found in his system. As far as I knew, the last job he had was at some shitty Downriver factory back in the early oughts where he “tore” his “achilles heel” on site and spent the last ten years trying to build up a workman’s compensation lawsuit without much luck --a practice he learned from his dad who also spent most of his adult life trying to sue Ford over a bad back. Anyway, the last time I saw him was the first time I’d seen him since graduation day, May 1994: Remarkably in shape for someone who never left his hometown, let alone his parents basement, long ponytail, cruising around on his fat tired bike and at least to me, gave an uncomfortably long hug as if we were long lost bffs. Truth be told, I couldn’t stand the guy mostly because he was a deadbeat dad and I had to play nice for those two minutes because of how close our families are.
I don’t know why I still think about D. He was just a bit part of my life who only recently came up since I moved back to the Detroit burbs a little over three years ago. Lord knows he’s not the only person I knew from around here who passed away either by overdose, suicide or (less than likely) natural causes, but it does have me thinking: Depression is everywhere, but does it seem to be more concentrated in economically depressed Midwestern cities? Or am I just thinking out loud and channeling my own neuroses on Tumblr again? In other words, am I disappointed in myself or everything around me?
As of today, I’m on day seven of unemployment without much of an effort to do something about it besides reap some temporary benefits and use my extended spare time to paint over some nail holes around my living room. It’s a strange feeling, being completely self-aware and detached at the same time. Like, I painted myself into a corner and I’m just casually waiting for the floor to dry; might take a few weeks, but that’s okay, got nowhere pressing to go anyway. Despite all of this new found time on my hands, I’ve been feeling pretty all right these days, more of a relief actually as I wasn’t particularly keen on the direction my life was taking and losing my job clinched this year long lingering feeling. Actually, I don’t think I ever got over that crummy first month of being back here that involved almost being frozen to death amidst a couple of bitter, lingering disappointments that carried on a lot longer than I care to admit. It seems like for most of my life, I’ve done everything for other people and just now, right this second, I’m actually doing something for myself: This aforementioned detachment comes from enjoying myself for once, but that nagging, pesky self-awareness in the back of my head knows that eventually, doing something for myself also involves some sort of self-sufficiency down the road. Stupid reality.
