And expecting a newborn child to come back out the other side.
I was watching a car commercial that kept playing all weekend. It featured a woman sitting shotgun in a brand new outdoor-lifestyle utility vehicle, longingly caught in a fever dream of escaping in an adjacent boxcar on a slowly moving train parallel to their commute.
The commercial ends with Joe and Jane Mc-Lennial rifling back to reality, content with the vehicle they have purchased because this vehicle they have purchased is THE equivalent of escaping all of their $6 bridge commutes, their latté thunderstorms, their Matrix skull fucks, their digital umbilical exchange programs. Off into the wild blue yonder they go, off to their next adventure!
It dawned on me that these commercials, for better or for worse, actually work on some people. I bet there is some miserable asshole out there who thought "Well, I can't ACTUALLY escape this nightmare of my mouse wheel, but if I can get a car that invokes the SPIRIT of a great wild escape with no consequences or thought into the future, that's GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME."
I fucking hate being lumped in with Millenials. I was born in 1983, which unfortunately puts me right smack dab in the middle of generational purgatory. I wasn't old enough to enjoy the grungy, subterranean, first-wave rebels who put on long johns and Mudhoney albums. But I'm also way too fucking old to get any source of entertainment out of constantly swapping faces on an app built by frat boys. I am the angry middle child.
The advantage of being caught in between cultural vestibules of intellectual jizz is that I get a front row seat to two different age groups in vastly different stages of rot and decay. I look around and see nothing but greed, borne of insecurity, borne of desperation. Everyone aged 22-55 wants the serenity of an unshackled life, yet they all buy products and lifestyles and livelihoods that make them prisoners of society. The spirit of rebellion is sold to us, cheaply and blatantly, as material possessions. We are supposed to believe that the best way to carve a path of independence is to all listen to the same music, download the same apps, read the same blogs, buy the same cars, and wear the same clothes.
BUY A HOUSE IN A TRENDY, UPCOMING URBAN CITY. EMBALM ALL YOUR IDEALS, SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS AND IDEOLOGIES IN FURNITURE, DECOR AND FRIENDS THAT MATCH YOUR PERSONALITY.
In 2015, I desperately wanted to be a "normal" guy. I wanted to be like those idiot jackoffs in the car commercial, longing for an escape in an expensive Lumberjack Porsche. I wanted a nice paying design job, a desk with two monitors and three bosses. I wanted a nice paycheck for once and just coast for a while. I started the GoFundMe in January 2016, but indulged in this urge for "normalcy". The way I saw it, I could funnel any money earned into my charity project, which I wanted to do but figured "okay, let me get this quote-unquote CAREER thing started, because American Dream and white picket fences and $55 steak dinners amirite?!?"
So, after almost 18 months of several thousand amateur YouTube tutorials, I found myself with a digital portfolio that actually looked pretty damn good.
In 2016, I got as far as anybody could get using a work ethic and determination I didn't really even know I had. I picked up my first (and so far only) invitation to do a Video Game Company Art Test, which I didn't pass but acquired about 10 billion pages worth of amazing feedback.
And THEN, it happened! I got a career path job! A graphic design internment---er...internship.... that I earned all by my god damn self! I was in heaven. I loved every second of that horrible commute across the Golden Gate Bridge to Petaluma. I loved every boring meeting, I loved my desk that was too high and my monitors that weren't calibrated correctly.
I loved getting coffee 45 minutes before opening the door to my office, at the diner down the street full of truckers and single mom waitresses.
And then, 2016 decided I was off course.
In May, I got laid off, not even a week after getting hired. They were "very, very sorry" but they just couldn't keep me on given the amateur status of my digital skill set... even though, you know, it was an INTERNSHIP.
In June, I got in a car accident. I was T-Boned by Flywheel Cab Driver #8107. Some Russian guy living in the Tenderloin who probably drives for Uber now. It took their insurance company almost 30 days to cut me a god damn check.
And then, in the larva stage of July, my house got broken into. It's a really long story, but my Landlord/Friend (rare combo) basically lost his damn mind. I felt bad for the guy. Nobody should have their sense of safety taken away from them. Shit is more precious than any amount of money can offer, really.
But after a series of unfortunate events, I could no longer just dismiss this sequence of events.
In a semi-figurative/literal sense: I lost my job, my car, and my home, in a consecutive and arresting fashion.
It suddenly dawned on me that this was life's way of compelling me to really, REALLY look at my priorities. Everything that I ever wanted in my adult life, I got a very small taste of for a very brief moment in time. And when it was all taken away from me in a heroin minute, I realized that everything had changed.
Friends and well-wishers implored me to keep looking for another design desk job. And when they saw the look on my face, they paused and asked if I even wanted to. The instant answer was a resounding "No. I am meant for bigger things."
So here I am now. I gave my 30 days notice to my Landlord/Friend, because the idea of living in San Francisco is no longer a necessity in order to accomplish what I want to do with Lost Colony. Beginning in September, I am no longer a resident of San Francisco. I am now a resident of the West Coast. Hopefully someday, I will become a resident of the world. But whatever.
I have given about 60% of everything I own to Goodwill, because I came to the conclusion that almost nothing I owned meant all that much to me in any sort of sentimental way, except for my art supplies and my love letters from Bri.
The first thing I gave away was my mattress, which I folded in half, stuffed in the trunk of my totaled car (which I'm selling soon), and drove to 3rd & Hudson where I personally delivered the bed to a homeless tent resident by the name of Tyrone.
All I care about now is my art, the charities I want to give to wherever I go, and I care about loving and cherishing the people in my life who matter the most.
Everything else is just a fake car commercial telling me what to care about, ABANDON what i care about, be miserable and buy things that will substitute all that I USED to care about.
And honestly I feel at peace for once.