A year ago, I thought I was just taking a semester off to watch our new son. Jasper was six months old. I took an online public speaking course so that I didn't feel like I was losing all of my steam towards finishing my Wildlife Biology degree. My inner monologue ran something like this:
This time I won't let parental duties get in the way of my goals. I will finish this degree, and I will be so proud of myself once it's over. I will make a great biologist, and this little bump in the road is just putting another feather in my cap to prove what a great dad I am.
For once, I had a completable goal, respect from my peers, actual feedback that showed what I was doing might actually work out. I believed I would pick up exactly where I had left off.
At this point, I am starting to forget the timeline of how it all went to shit. Was it COVID first, or did it dawn on us beforehand that we wouldn't be able to afford daycare in the fall, rendering me unable to drive up to CSU every day for one last year to complete my degree? Did I know for sure that I wouldn't be able to take classes in person, or did I preemptively transfer to MSU based on a belief that things would somehow go that way anyhow? Was I actually considering teaching high school at some point? Did I fucking quit Trigonometry halfway through retaking it? What dumb mother fucker tried to force me to do that in the first place, and would they feel sorry if they understood how much emotional turmoil it put me through?
This year was spent wishing so badly I could have the same goals and beliefs I had a year and a few months ago. Back when I had beliefs and goals at all, back when beliefs and goals mattered. Today it seems like those two glorious attributes of being human are childish wants, like candy and Santa. We cannot have beliefs and goals in the COVID world; those kinds of things are just torn away from us the second we start to form them. Best to "live in the now," soaked a little in whiskey and lounging in pajamas. Jeans and water were for the other world when there were places to go and shit to get done. Jeans and water are for people with beliefs and goals, somewhere to be and someone to become.
In the interest of journalistic documentation of the crumbling of my hopes and dreams, I feel inclined to write down the details so that I can look back later and remember it all. On the other hand, it's hard to identify anything that I really see as worth remembering about anything that happened in this last year. Wiping down food with sanitizers, losing my superhuman ability to smoke pot while regaining a portion of my old drinking habit and the weight gain that comes with it. The doom-scrolling of the news after spending years of not even giving a single fuck about current cultural information. The self-hatred for backsliding somewhat into a state of existence that is really just the normal operating mode of most American male humans. The pathetic heaps of pity I felt for me, poor me, the privileged middle-class white guy who can't do whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it. Why me? Why the fuck not?
No, I don't think any of this is worth remembering. If Morpheus kicked my study door down with his giant ass boots and offered me a pill that allowed me to forget all of this and head back to my blissful skateboard, biology, and pot-smoked-filled world, I'd do it so fast. Hook me up to the tubes, submerse me in the goo. Get my brain envatted! Stimulate it in whatever way is necessary to force me to forget any of this ever happened and believe that I am applying for wildlife jobs or grad school. I am not interested in having this be a part of my history, or anyone's, for that matter.
And for this reason, I refuse to try to write down the timeline in detail. Let the record show that I am purposefully neglecting the record, hoping that the chain of causation will become as tangled as the old box of XLR and ¼ inch cables sitting in my closet. If I can't take a pill to make it all go away, at least I can decide to not give a shit about whether or not I remember this whole fiasco accurately. Let it all become a disordered maximum entropy mess that I can sweep into a box and label it:
SHIT I HATE.
Henceforth, I am going to remember pre-COVID me and refocus on my old priorities. I will try my best to pretend that none of this ever happened and just hope that the slow recovery of society will meet me halfway somewhere in supporting this illusion. These priorities are:
1. My family
2. My education about the world for knowledge's sake
3. The outdoors
4. My artwork
These are the things that make me happy. I still have them and must remove the doubts and bad habits that got in the way of their ability to work their magic. Whiskey for weed was a fair trade, I think, and I will monitor my intake. But in general, it’s time to stop letting the shit I hate infect all of the other things that I still love.
I am still me. The world exists, and it is full of garbage, but I can shape my perceptions and focus my attention however I see fit. I am the shit. Hail Satan.