Image Ghosting

There's a quaintness to nostalgia as the memory creche it cuddles in is built of and lined with the puffy, drowsy cloud of naïveté woven by a person who knows way less than you about what's to come. That person, of course, is You, but before. You know, from back when you were stupid. The things that you thought were a big deal seem now so trivial and distant, it's embarrassing. You got so engrossed looking down, careful not to step in gum, you missed the giant wrecking ball bearing down on you full speed from behind. But not just a regular wrecking ball either. It's hollowed out and filled with lava. And lava-proof bees. And it's covered in spikes. And marmite. And it's NEVER washed its hands, so it's definitely going to give you COVID-19.

With every fresh coat of colon-minted darkness that is layered over us and/or we layer over ourselves, the keen plaster-knife edge of survived horrors chips and dulls. It has to because we know now, in retrospect, that it all was by definition survivable. If it weren't, we wouldn't be here to bitch about it. This has gotten me thinking a lot about George W. Bush, and the walking human crisis he was when he was installed as president. Now he just seems like a regular, shitty Republican. A turd, yes, but a turd in a richly carved and gilded wooden box, one fashioned by and handed down to previous Republican presidents of the modern observable phenotype, at least since Nixon. Shit, but you know, in a time-honored presentation made acceptable by tradition.

Even the election of 2016, which then was rightly regarded as a pit filled with vipers and human vomit, from the distance of time and a half-glance cast over the shoulder, could be reasonably mistaken for a shiny silver punch bowl by comparison to the new depths we descend to with each new, smelly, dank, virusy, befucked day. It's not "normalizing" to recognize that things didn't used to be this bad. It's a way to try to plant your feet, gum or no gum, and pick a direction to jump, before you intersect with the wrecking ball and the lava-bees.

Even in this mess of basic Hobbesian brutish nastiness, it's incumbent upon us to respect the lizard-brain id, but not to surrender to it in the name of mere continuation. There has to be a goal to do more than to just get by, but to one day thrive again. We're all maybe too connected to the ones we're sheltered-in-place with, while everyone else is at a sterile and tinny Zoom's length. Our root tendrils will have to extend into that soil again, risking some safety for sustenance.

It's an interesting time to be a single person, I will tell you that from experience. Imagine meeting someone (online of course) you can never touch, never really lock eyes with, never breathe the same air as, never engage in that molecular exchange of chemical energy that comes with that first sometimes-halting, sometimes-awkward conversation over a coffee or whatever? Online dating was built specifically to give you a nudge out the door, but what happens when the door has to stay shut? It's been an experience, I can tell you. The emotional culture is so fraught and weighty, if you do make a connection, it's difficult to parse it, to understand which parts of your longing it's attached to. How do you miss someone you've never met? How do you know if what you're feeling is a Feeling and not just a feeling?

The answer today is "fuck if I know." But the old me--the one burdened with social anxiety and a lingering commitment deficit and a string of regrets centered around spectacular women who have moved on to better things--sure seemed like he had his shit together. You know, by comparison.