Clash, Bang, Catastrophe

“What the fuck am I doing?” I ask myself nearly every day.

Without plans for the future, lost and confused, I find myself chewing on any little thing that wanders astray from my self-micromanaged schedule, savoring the flavor of self-deprecation until all I have left to taste is a bland, indescript mush. In moments of lucidity, I realize my mind is just catastrophizing daily annoyances into disasters that play footsie with despair. However, victory tends to be short-lived. Nowadays, I feel mostly like I’m scrambling up and down the sides of a deep swimming pool, hoping to at some point gain enough momentum to reach the edge and pull myself up.

When negative thoughts flood my head, I try to take on an asset-based view of my situation. Relatively-speaking, I have a lot going for me and very little to complain about. I have an apartment with a full kitchen (important for a foodie like me), a pleasant, mild-mannered roommate, my own office for escaping the heat and recuperating from work, and a boss who’s actually not an asshole – he only has tendencies. As for my job, it has and continues to sustain my interest since it poses intriguing questions about the lives of tiny, colorful animals who have no idea why we lumbering, bipedal creatures are picking them up and manhandling them. So what’s missing?

While discussing my restlessness online with a friend, she suggested I might be lacking my usual support network. Good point. I had not realized until about a month ago, when my family visited, how much I had missed them. Although we sometimes fell back into our usual bickering, I still wished I had had more time to spend with them. Family is very important in Latin American cultures; it’s common for people to go home and hang out with their parents and siblings on weekends. Interpersonal dialogue, between family and even strangers, tends to be much more playful than the typical conversations (if any) had between family or strangers in the States. Gone is the awkward, mostly silent dinner with parents. Instead, picture a table roaring with laughter over the recount of an embarrassing moment and/or one sibling making fun of the other, each playful jab being met with a sharp, witty comeback. In face of this, I started reflecting upon the ever evolving role my family has played in my life, how I have always counted on them being available and attentive, how I have in adolescent relapses lacked patience for their expressed concern. It is a continuous struggle to strengthen instead of strain relations as I realize that in my most uncertain, lost moments, I reach out to them for advice.

But when even advice from family fails to ward off doubt, I turn to friends. Many people in my social circles, myself included, have dispersed to all corners of the world, making a heart-to-heart conversation difficult to have if not impossible. Over the months, I have tried to adjust, albeit reluctantly, to receiving the occasional email response or Skype call, the brief instant message sent on someone’s way out. But none of the aforementioned means of communicating comes close to sitting down on a couch, drinking a cup of tea, and chatting the night away with a dear friend after baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies. So now what?

I could go home. Build a life for myself somewhere and settle down. Or continue going from one seasonal job to the next. Either way has its appeals. If I do continue traveling, I could find a city along the way, and like a sponge to water, greedily soak up its offerings of art, film, and music until I am drunk on creative energy and then hop to my next middle-of-nowhere gig. What earnings I have managed to keep a hold onto will get me through at least a few more countries I reckon. So, I’m leaning towards adhering to my theory on any worthwhile pursuit in life. That is to say, I’m going to ride this wave until it crashes.

Song of the day: Daniel Johnston’s “Story of an Artist”
Current record on repeat: The National’s High Violet (stream it for free)
Literary goldmine: The Millions