The State of Things
That day I got back from my daily morning run, happy from letting the sun touch my skin one more day. I noticed after trying to wash my hands in my dark bathroom that the power was off in my building. I had forgotten to pay the power bill earlier this month. One awkward chat with the electrical company customer service people and boom — lights on again. Life back to normal. I borrowed money from my usual sources (my parents, predatory payday loans that let me refinance now and then, payday advancement apps on my phone) to pay the power bill and proceeded to live just as usual. I read in the afternoons, browse the internet endlessly in-between, and take a walk in the evening. At night I do some laundry and tidy up my place, and maybe play with the cats. Sometimes I call my family. I like doing the same things everyday, I think. Or rather — I hate not doing the same things everyday. I feel great anxiety whenever I must modify my daily schedule: irritation, sadness, feelings of despair and failure. To avoid these, I simply stick to what I know.
I fear that the way I live is in multiple levels not sustainable. First, I have been particularly bad at handling my modest graduate student earnings. I am in debt and can’t seem to make progress paying it off. Whenever it seems the loans are on its way to be paid, something comes up that will force me to refinance them. Rent and food are expensive, and even though I am fond of thrift shopping, I can’t seem to save much on other miscellaneous expenses like clothes or household items. Part of me believes, frankly, that since I don’t know if I will make it to the next day, I might as well get a fancy thing for myself every other day. An ice cream pint. A t-shirt. A vinyl record. Fruit. But maybe I ought to start budgeting and one day I will be free from debt. I could maybe even save enough for a vacation or a car or moving to a cheaper apartment, who can tell?
If I pretend my finances are fine, however, the pieces of this puzzle still aren’t quite right. Even though I am too old now to care about popularity and socializing, I still worry sometimes that I am too socially awkward to move around the world as most people do. On the internet, I have lots of friends and acquaintances with whom I share the full extent of my personality. Outside of it, however, I never quite learned how to make plans with people or to express interest in them. There is a character in Anne Tyler’s novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant called Ezra who expresses he must have missed the lesson on how to make friends one of those days he missed school. I come back to that often. This is not to say I am entirely friendless, but my friendships do seem to be a subtler shade than what I have heard friendship is meant to look like from others. It scares me a little, too, that I seem to be okay with this most times. Loneliness should terrify me, but what terrifies me instead is to be perceived as a loner. I don’t enjoy thinking of myself as different from most people, but most times I can’t help it.
I keep comparing the present state of things to the past and I can’t help but wondering if there is much to be proud of right now or back then — then and now, now and then: different only, but not better…
I don’t recall feeling much more satisfied with the state of things when I was 13, awkwardly going through puberty and interrogating every single thing about myself and those around me. Or when I was 16, adapting to life in a new country, one whose language I spoke with an incomprehensible accent and whose people intimidated me a lot. Or when I was 18, in a university known for its party scene and sociable people where I felt like a fish out of water. Or when I was 22, back to living with mom and dad because my humanities degree did not land me a job to live on my own.
So…the state of things…
I have been an adult legally for a few years now, but I don’t feel much like one.
I have a career that I enjoy, and even if the future is very uncertain (foreign language departments across the country’s universities keep shutting down as students pursue instead — quite logically — more profitable study programs), I don’t think I would want to do anything else with my life but read novels and philosophy and talk about them with likeminded people.
I have a family that cares about me and loves and supports me, but one that I can’t afford to see frequently and that I can’t imagine living with again.
I have two cats, I love them.
I have the capacity to write all of this down and throw it into the air. Sometimes that’s what I crave. Björk said in her song “Hyperballad” that she imagines what her body would sound like crashing against the rock off the cliff where she lives. I imagine that as well, most days. I wonder what it would be like to live under a different state of things.
