If This Is Heaven Then Why Isn't The Parking Free

This is a short epilogue of sorts, maybe a bit of reflecting, a bit more personal and also maybe a little bit less of a telling of constant events and a little more an observation of daily foibles, although it hues similarly in terms of style and structure and does take cues from my previous entry. It is mostly for my own sake and nothing else, getting thoughts down, whatever. It probably will make sense without reading We Are All... but I think some of the context and some of the references might lose some effect. Like before, this is basically entirely true, with just some minor details and settings and things slightly scrambled to prevent any identification. I wrote it in a few hours this afternoon and evening since my previously started follow up was awful in every way, although I suppose this is too, and I honestly can't really bring myself to get it critiqued or whatever, so what follows is what follows and nothing more.

CW for depression and suicide and drug and alcohol abuse. The language is a lot less caustic. We all grow up eventually.

I'd say "enjoy" but you're free to do what you want.

We Are All What Everyone Has Ever Done To Us

(Content Warning: Before you read any further, I just want to say that what follows is a non-fiction retelling of various life experiences that both myself and those I know went through. Because of that, there is, and I don't say this lightly or jokingly, a lot of objectionable material. I have kept things honest and truthful in how they happened in real life, so please bear in mind that over the course of these posts, there will be accurate re-tellings of substantial instances of; racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, other forms of bigotry, sexual assault, rape, bullying, violent assault, self-harm, depression, suicide, drug use and abuse, alcohol abuse, hospitalization, and various examples of trauma. Language is rarely censored. Please keep that in mind if you choose to continue. The last thing I want to do is cause any additional pain or discomfort. Starting from the words "Part 1" a few paragraphs down, you are reading what can and does involve all of these warnings. Thank you.)

This is a lengthy blog post, although not anything close to a novel, involving a bit of exercising of demons, of coming to peace with certain things I did, I saw, and I saw others have happen. As all things, you're choosing to read this through the author's lense and then whatever you bring to it, and I've chosen things that I feel contribute to the overall narrative (if one exists). You're left to decide on your own if my selection of experiences and people and moments I choose to share is fair or not. Maybe that's not the point. Maybe there never was.

What follows is mostly a series of anecdotes starting when I was in elementary school and running up until present day. There is no overarching plot, not a lot of recurring characters (other than myself and a few friends), and no narrative framing or devices other than me just confessing. Maybe I missed the heyday of confessional blog posts when they seemed to be all the rage about 10 years ago. But then again, all writing is confessional. Even if you write about elves and orcs and wizards, you are imbuing what you create with your values and interests and desires and then asking the world to pay money to embark on reading it. Maybe we're all egoists. Maybe none of us are. Maybe that's not the point (again).

No matter how much or how little you read of this, whether you love or hate or feel indifferent, I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who has ever come to this very, very tiny corner of the internet. All I can promise about what follows is that it is honest. Names have been changed, and locations are unspecific, and I bumped a grade around a bit here and there for anonymity (a 5th grade story might have really been 4th, etc.), but about 95% of this is portrayed as happened. Whether or not that means anything is up to you.

If Only We Could Exchange Our Parking Validation for Something More Personal

The ticket gets spit out of a machine and then you take into a nearby business and ask them to validate it and it's so simple, they stamp it and its existence has been justified and now you park for free.

After work the couple complains about their job and they're all trying to get each anecdote in and after 15 years of marriage neither one really listens to the other but they're just looking to get validated, to have someone hear their story and maybe, just maybe, they can park for free.

Someone on Twitter or Tumblr or Facebook writes a 5,000 word post about something bad that happened to them and it gets 2 likes and a sad face emote, 1 retweet, and 3 reblogs. You could try to print this off as a receipt and say it grants you authoritative status, or at the very least free parking, but the person in the ticket booth just stares at you and asks for your actual ticket.

If you're quiet and never spill secrets you can collect the complaints all of your friends have for one another and then try to validate them all while not talking bad about anyone. It doesn't matter. The complaints plow onward.

At some point almost everyone in life tries to write something and then get it out there and let an immoral, money-obsessed free market driven entirely by advertising culture's pernicious effect on our brain and corporate preference choose which one amidst the millions is lucky enough to get a glossy cover and a spot at the local bookstore that is going out of business. Every year, 1000s of amazing things are written. Nobody ever reads them, and the authors go back to their day job where they validate parking tickets.

The old cards and photos and the like sit on your nightstand and you can validate a memory by replaying it and just like that it's over. Between drinks you might share it with someone who remembers it differently. Then you might start forgetting it. The ink has worn off the ticket. Your first few cars have already broken down.

On your death bed you might say you wished you worked less. The paycheck you received was what you had been told was the ultimate validation. It got you the camera, the car to park, the dinner at the business where they stamped your ticket. You could have not worked so much but that time would have just been filled by duplicitous attempts to put yourself out there and be validated.

The family nods as you tell them this, realizing that the wisdom you have bestowed upon them is true. Your eyes close for the last time.

Your 16 year old granddaughter goes back to her first job. While not in school, she sits in a small, under heated booth, perched under the roof of a 5 story parking ramp, validating the tickets of the people who come in and hope to have a good time, and leave wondering if, in the end, it was all worth the price of admission.

Number Shift

Someone will tell you the new year is arbitrary. Someone will tell you it's not. Someone will ask if you have goals. Someone will tell you over 60% of them fail (some report even higher failure rates). Maybe you'll have spent the last two weeks with family, or friends, or office parties, or even media, bombarded with takes and suggested virtue and opinions and help that you might just hope isn't too demeaning, too presumptive, too cold, too distant. Maybe it's fitting then that it all comes in winter, when all things are too cold and distant. Maybe you'll drink and maybe you won't, maybe you'll pray and maybe you won't, maybe you'll eat luxurious food and maybe you won't, maybe you'll download an astrology app, or a dating app (New Years brings a massive spike in traffic for all of them from every demographic and culture), maybe you'll think about it all too much or not enough. Some will treat it like a birthday - another sign of passing time - others as rebirth, not an extension thereof. Through all these experiences, people will look for a cohesive answer, a reassuring sign, analysis, framework, catchphrase, a simple source of comfort that can be banked and relied on when most of us are just running around and trying to make the most of systems far too complex to understand. But there is no answer, no elegant solution to existence, no one-size-fits-all new years solution, referendum, annotation, no way to frame the upcoming year in a way that makes things work out, cohesively, every time. The ball drops in 10 seconds, the TV announcer is half a second ahead on the countdown, and then we're all left with "what now." The same as any other year. Coffee will be on the stove tomorrow at 7.