Come On (Up or) Down

January 7th, 2021

I’m about to get that kind of honest where it’s hard to look a person in the eyes after. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, slide into this booth next to me and let’s talk.

With everything that’s happened over the past year, and especially after losing my mom, I can’t see a future. I close my eyes real hard and I don’t see weeks or months or years ahead. It’s hard to explain, but it just feels like a lot of ends are happening all at once.

And living through endings makes you constantly aware that you have one coming, too. If you imagine all of time rolled out like a mat — like how you know physical space to be — then you’ve actually already died and just haven’t reached that point in space-time yet. And every time I get a headache, or I feel a stomach cramp, or I forget a name, it fills me with anxiety and dread that maybe that’s all she wrote for me.

I see people taking breaks from social media, and that is great. Self-care is vital to a healthy existence, and boundaries are important. But the thing I keep thinking about is: why aren’t we making social media a place we don’t need a break from? Why are we not making it better? I feel like the internet chases all the best people away, like a coyote with bad grammar and digital teeth. There has to be humanity here, and balance.

So I’ll make you a deal, as far as making this whole social media thing better.

I’ll be real with you.

I’ll be compassionate for you.

I will find joy with you.

I will listen to you.

I’ll hear you when you call me out.

I’ll be there to support you.

I will try to make you smile.

And the most difficult one for me…

I will try to find hope and see a future with you.

I don’t know what young me is thinking about in this photo. Probably girls or Pokemon cards. But I do know he was always thinking about the future. He was always dreaming and building and laughing and his imagination had no bounds. He saw the world with new eyes daily, which is one of the only parts of his I know I still have.

Death may always be just behind door number one, but I have to keep reminding myself that there is always something behind the curtain, too.

Let’s stay in this game show together.