#FreeWriteFriday 12/11/20

inspired by Garrett Richie’s 2013–2014 freewrites… this is a 10 minute stream-of-consciousness ramble, written from 11:50pm to Saturday. It has been very lightly edited for typos & awkward phrasing, but not content.

The FDA approved the COVID vaccine today! It’s exciting, though it just feels like another day. I guess I’ll be able to see a concert in June.

Who knows what will happen between now and then? I’m so used to this lifestyle adjustment that it’s hard to imagine anything different. But… just like we settled in, we’ll settle right back out.

Everyone is expecting to party like it’s the Roaring 20’s, and it will be. All of the work people did on themselves will be thrown out the window as we revert to the lives we had before. That sounds presumptuous and pompous… but I do suspect a few people who reached out to exes with apologies or who got cleaned up out of necessity did so because they’ve been stuck so long in their own shit. Now they won’t have to worry about that, again. Maybe that’s cynical.

I don’t expect to go back to drinking. I don’t want to. I quit before the pandemic, and I’ve stayed true this long. Why start back at the beginning? A story is something that ends where it started, with one less lie.

I do have a weird FOMO about the parties that’ll happen. I already felt isolated and out of place before, like I could hang out for a few drinks but eventually everyone but me was on a different plane. Well, they were all on the same plane, and I was on the ground… which I chose. But, maybe that means I need to find people who don’t want to go flying.

It’s just… the flyers are the ones who bring the most joy in life.

Hannah has quit with me, and I’m so unbelievably grateful for that. She’s doing it for herself, not me, and I do feel weird about it, like I’m pressuring her subconsciously or passively. She talks to her old friends and mentions that she doesn’t drink anymore… do they wonder if it’s because I pressured her to stop?

I can’t worry about what anyone else thinks about me or controlling an image/perception. If I had time for that, there would be hundreds of other “brand management” crises to focus on first.

All I can do is continue to work hard, stay true to my principles, and be compassionate. It’s been a big year for looking out for others.

Well, not for everyone! It was so weird — I finally logged back into Instagram for the first time in 8 weeks. It was to post a flier on the MizzouNYC account, which I probably irresponsibly neglected, though theoretically there are multiple people leading the charge there.

And it was so weird to glance through Instagram at the lives people are projecting. It’s what I wanted to escape. The race to show relevance, to belong to the zeitgeist in a unique way. Everyone was traveling still? Or sharing pictures from their travels.

Obviously people only post once a week or whatever, but consuming 2 months at once made it feel like everyone I know has been reveling for the last 8 weeks while I’ve sat home, quietly.

Which isn’t totally true! I made it home to TX for a week (albeit with significant precautions and testing), and that’s something I probably would have posted to Instagram if I still was Participating In The Culture aka group mental disease.

It’s not a problem if everyone else is doing it! Riiiiight. You know, for all the FOMO Instagram causes, the second I left the platform, I didn’t miss it at all. And nobody missed me!

I can’t think of a single person who reached out to ask what happened or where I went. I guess they figured I was always going to leave. I talked about it regularly. Or… they didn’t notice. Either way, I didn’t notice them either. And, that’s sad… but liberating.