This Beautiful Bullshit We Call Life
It might be funny to see a 27 hour film of every time I said, “Jesus Christ” or made fun of my parents.
When we die, sometimes I imagine that we’ll be forced to sit through a movie of everywhere we could have made a difference in people’s lives and decided not to. Everywhere we could have chosen kindness and did not. I don’t know. If that’s actually the case, I better learn to get comfortable sitting in one space for a really long time. I try to be kind at every opportunity but I’d be afraid to see the stats.
Perhaps God isn’t like that at all. Perhaps He takes into account what we endured to make us who we are. And if that’s the case, does He do that for murderers, too? Or is that what the Ten Commandments are for? Maybe they’re the list of exceptions. “I can overlook all the shit you’ve done except for these 10 things.” If that was the case, it might be funny to see a 27 hour film of every time I said, “Jesus Christ” or made fun of my parents.
Death and the afterlife. I realize that has been a recurring theme lately. So allow me to explain that first: while I have never been considered particularly suicidal, I do toy with the idea as an intellectual question
Take the events of this past week: I brought my car into the dealer because I felt a shake in the engine compartment. I was assuming it was probably a motor mount and was bracing myself to endure a $1500 repair. Well after looking at the car, the dealer said my diagnosis was a bit off. It was a head gasket. Maybe even needs a new head. Thousands upon thousands of dollars.
I can’t just get rid of the car because I have years of payments left. Best case is I have to max out all of my credit cards and after interest, wind up paying thousands more. It has the feel of financial ruin. In a situation like this, if there was just a quick exit door I could walk out of, I’d probably stand at the threshold and try to make a decision. Luckily, deading oneself is generally a violent and painful process. This, I feel, is by design. You need to really be committed to the idea.
And I’m really not. I’ve experienced enough life to know that if you stick around and hang on, the wind changes. Things get good again. At least that’s the hope I am clinging to. Besides, writing is one of the greatest joys in my life and last I checked it’s still free. I mean, that is if you don’t fall victim to the endless parade of snake oil salesmen and charlatans who have usurped LinkedIn and turned it into a rest home for Nigerian princes.
There was a young person at work last week who said that she read somewhere that men get more sensitive as they get older because they start losing testosterone. Initially I wanted to dispute her theory, but my gut told me that I’d find myself engrossed in a conversation I didn’t really want to have, so I just smiled.
This is what I have started to do when I don’t feel like engaging. I just smile.
If I did have the inclination to talk about this, I would’ve begun with that fact that I was a terribly sensitive young person. If someone looked at me the wrong way, I’d be thinking about it as I tried to sleep days later. And let’s not start up about my testosterone levels as a 20 year old. I’m pretty sure I wanted to screw every girl I saw and kill every guy I knew. My testosterone was ruling everything around me like C.R.E.A.M.
The only time I feel like I didn’t have the capacity to feel emotion was the opiate days. That shit just flat lines you. It’s such a great painkiller that it even numbs the pain of existence. (You might understand why it’s such a powerful draw for the traumatized.) When I first stopped doing that, cat litter commercials would have me in tears.
But it’s my sensitivity to emotion that makes my life so rich. The other day I got a text from a woman I adore and in it, she said she loved me. Actually, she said she loved me a lot. That gave me a lump in my throat because it touched me so deeply. And that’s when I realized a few very important truths: I am a working man. I will always work, I will always have just enough to cover my bills and buy myself bullshit from Amazon and that’s very likely as prosperous as I’ll be.
This recent car thing, well, there’s nothing really very unique about it. It’s unremarkable and common. Why would I walk through that door when I can stay here and get all emo over text messages?
Life is like a lot of lover’s I’ve had over the years. Beautiful but a total pain in the ass. And really, I don’t think I’d want it any other way.
YIKES, re: your car. One day it will be paid off along with the credit card bills. Love the piece, but stumped at the C.R.E.A.M. ?? Thanks Billy for another weekend read.