I wish sometimes that I could port my thoughts directly into text - dreams of some sci-fi future from the 80's that never came to pass, or at least hasn't yet. I compose best in my head. By the time that I go to write or type it all out, it comes out not nearly as creatively as my thoughts had been. This is another attempt to extract meanderings in my mind that I had on my way into work at the theatre today.
Each time one bus leaves, the sidewalk is teeming with little old Asian people. Bus fills, sidewalk clears, bus departs, sidewalk refills... rinse repeat. I find myself singing a Beatles song in my mind "all the lonely people, where do they all come from?" as I board the next bus pulling up, gym bag over my shoulder with a newly purchased Revlon hair dryer that was on sale for $11.99. I hope it'll prevent my post-pool and shower wet hair from making me sick again. The air in San Francisco is too chill in December to be walking around with wet hair.
And then I remind myself again that it's December. Where did this year go? Why do I care so little for holidays that aren't about dressing up as someone you're not? My love of Halloween is probably because I'm so unapologetically me the rest of the year. But my feeling of meh about Christmas and such could be a number of things really... family hasn't ever been a huge thing in my world outside of my grandparents, now deceased, and my Mom. My half brother and I were never really close save a short stint in our early 20's when I was partying like it was 1999... because it was. He doesn't call, but neither do I, and it doesn't seem that big a deal for the most part.
But I digress... I'm back in my mind on the bus. As is a normal thought lately, I'm surprised to find that I am probably the youngest person aboard. And the only one with blue hair wearing legwarmers for sure. The bus pulls up at a stop and a dozen or so elderly shuffle out like geriatric penguins. I've been standing rather than risk the evil eye of someone a generation or two ahead of me when the next wave boards. I honestly avoided taking the 30 or the 45, mostly due to my lack of empathy for people who block the sidewalk, and Stockton being a nightmare of cheap produce markets and all sorts of giant jars of unidentifiable objects labeled in a cryptic language I don't understand. I'm guessing it's Mandarin or Cantonese. I've never been very clear on how to tell the difference between many of the languages of Asia save Thailand, but that's mainly because I lived there for a year. I still couldn't tell you what any of the little symbols sound like by sight.
I take a seat finally, three stops before mine. The little old man next to me gives me the once over in a way that makes me think of zombies, stirring a morbid thought to the surface. It's one I've thought many times in my life, but more and more the older I get. Man, I don't want to be like that.
I've said before I've never had a fear of death. Death is fine - nobody knows what happens afterward. There's a lot of conjecture and some maybe believable experiences that are 100% based on trusting the story you're being told by someone who could very well be full of shit. What I fear is frailty, helplessness and memory loss - the trifecta of what seem like inevitable parts of growing old.
How broken in spirit people seem to be at that age - people my age even, who am I kidding? My mind drifts into a philosophical space that ties back into why I have a distrust of community and by proxy holidays having to do with community. Our world is built on community agreement about the stories we hear and learn and understand. From the start children are lied to about a myriad of subjects - Santa Claus is a good one that people think has no real impact on kids' psyches. According to Steinbeck making something from your life that's outside the wheelhouse you're born into is an impossible dream. We learn that people lie "for our own good." To protect us. And in a way, it tells us nobody is honest. It makes me wonder if that's what breaks people's spirits - that they stop believing; stop trusting. We're spoon fed this idea that if we conform to whatever standard we find ourselves in, then we're doing good in the world - a world that continues to have starvation & disease & war. But don't worry, you're doing the right thing just following the footsteps of everyone generations before ours - they wouldn't lie to you, right? And hey, if you're more financially successful that just goes to show you've improved upon the previous generation. My heart's just never been in it, because I always come back to this other morbid thought - let's call it #2, because it's poopy.
None of it matters.
You hear people say it all the time - that the journey is what matters, not the destination. Why does the journey even matter though? Some people have awful journeys that are entirely out of their hands like being born in a place being bombed by some other more powerful country. Or a place that cuts off parts of your body because it's a purification ritual. Or a place where you're so poor that your single mom, let's say, works all the time and you basically are on your own to figure things out, with your only thought being that you don't want to struggle like that when you're an adult, but the only way you see to get out of that is to also work all the time at a job you hate because at least you won't be poor, but then you find you just can't do it because you feel it's completely meaningless to continue to drudge through and try to follow a path that doesn't feel right for you.
Yeah that last part may have been a little personal. But I know I'm not alone in feeling completely cheated by how this world is and a bit helpless to change it - one part of the 'old' trifecta, remember? People tell me I've got a sadness behind my eyes... and that helplessness is what it is. We live in a world where anything is possible. And inherently we know that, but at the same time we don't really believe it. We find that it's just too overwhelming - like being born in a red state as a blue voter. You feel like whatever you do doesn't really matter, because the tide is against you. The only option really is to leave, because convincing a million people that their view isn't going to make things better is ridiculous - or in my case, I'd be purple in a red or blue state trying to explain that the whole game is rigged. Nobody wants to hear that.
That's how life often feels to me. People run around the world acting like they know what's best for everyone else while secretly they're doing all the things they tell people not to do. How can one be that way and not understand that means everyone else is probably doing the exact same thing? I feel really alone in that thought. It's why when people ask why honesty is so important to me, I tell them "if I am not honest how can I ever believe anyone else is?" So it goes for everything. But the truth is - I think everyone is a liar and a hypocrite, but I get that it's not their fault they have been that way - it's only their fault if they recognize it and continue to lie. Not that I think there is any saving anyone with that rhetoric. I mean, look at Jesus Christ. Of course he let them crucify him - he saw the pointlessness of it all, and knew this was the best he could offer - not taking part in it. Then of course there are stories about him coming back to life and all, and maybe that stuff happened, but even if he rose from the dead and told everyone "See! It's all a lie!" the impact was and still is: people kill in his name, almost indiscriminately sometimes.
That's where my mind ended up on the bus wishing I could port my thoughts into text surrounded by the aged populace of San Francisco who I can't help but wonder if they ever even think about these things. That in the end, even if you are the greatest being ever to walk to Earth - even if you got everyone to understand how they've had blinders on and can choose something else - you'd be spoken of anecdotally when you're gone at best, and murdered for at worst.
I think that's why spirits get broken. The fight is pointless. Yet I continue to fight it for some insane reason. I continue to be real and honest and give my best at all things. But I wonder if that's out of my fear of being broken - of turning into an old cataract-eyed waddling penguin of a human riding a bus back and forth to who knows where wishing I'd done things differently until the day they find my body and tell stories about what a crazy lady I was. I don't want to be regretfully elderly. And the most morbid thought of all - in all its selfishness is: I hope either I die or the world ends before I become that. Wish for that on your birthday candle. I just wish the world would be different for us all.
And that's a typical morning commute in the mind of me. You're welcome.
