pee,â I say.
UNLIKE THE PREVIOUS session shadowing a postie, a hard day of journalism doesnât quite wear me out. On days not spent at the track, Iâve been kept awake by low-level anxiety attacks. Iâm fretting, as is my wont, over the wayward course of my life.
These days, Iâm no longer afraid of getting old. In fact, I prefer my thirties to my twenties. I wear better clothes and avoid draft beer. Iâve finished War and Peace and given up on trying to read Proust. The hay fever that ruined my childhood summers now affects me less severely; I donât catch cold nearly as easily; Iâm able to rest on planes. My decrepitude has come with abundant blessings.
Now what bothers me is the idea that Iâm behind. Friends have gone further in their careers, acquired the objects, relationships, and experiences that denote a rich, un-squandered life. Iâm competitive, after all.
I stay up later than I should and after lying in bed for two hours, I get up with the intention of transcribing the interview with the rock star. I get to the part of this interview about horseracing and listen to it twice. I tilt my head back. Pinned on the corkboard above my computer screen is the to-do list I made earlier in December. With the new year arriving, I put together a list of things I wanted to have accomplished by the following year. As a form of stress relief, I compulsively made lists, breaking inapproachable burdens into bite-sized, component tasks. It was this format, favoured by obsessive males around the world, that I used to chart my life goals.
1. BECOME A HOME OWNER
2. FIND TRUE LOVE
3. SETTLE DOWN & START A FAMILY
4. SEE THE WORLD
5. LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE
6. START A RETIREMENT PLAN
7. GET A TATTOO
The list, of course, is a joke. As a matter of principle, to-do lists shouldnât take a lifetime to complete. They shouldnât hang above you in reproach, like an eviction notice. To-do lists are made in order to provide the pleasure of crossing them out.
With that in mind, I take down the list and cross out the first item: 1. BECOME A HOME OWNER . After all, didnât I substitute that task with a way cooler acquisition? With pen in hand, I alter my first entry: 1. HOME OWNERSHIP BOUGHT A RACEHORSE.
It was unlikely that I would legitimately be able to cross off any of the other items on my list in the near future. But what was keeping me from finding other substitutions? Instead of seeing the world or picking up another language, maybe I could learn to play backgammon or master Morse code.
And maybe instead of getting married, I could hook up with someone online. With that in mind, and two glasses of Crown Royal in my belly, I notice that Linda Leeâa source of heartache two years agoâis available for online chat. Sheâs in Toronto now, three hours ahead, so she must have just gotten out of bed. We havenât spoken over those two years, not even a cursory hello when I added her as a Facebook friend. I click onto her profile and look at pictures of her cat, her boyfriend, her road trip through Morocco. I click through all the photos of her, then loop through them again. The most recent photos of her no longer feature the aforementioned boyfriend, though her status is still set as âIn a Relationship.â
I argue with myself. If she wanted to talk to me, she could talk to me. I wasnât the one who moved away. I wasnât the one who acted awfully. Well, I sort of acted awfully, but she made things worse. I click onto her name and consider typing âhello,â but what keeps me from chatting with her is a message from another person of interest, Celeste:
CELESTE: Whatcha doing up so late?
KC: Up to no good.
CELESTE: Har-har.
Celeste lives in Kentucky. Last I heard she was married to a mathematician.
KC: You?
CELESTE: I just got back from a run. Whatâs new with you?
KC: I own a racehorse.
CELESTE: Figures... what????
KC: Long
UNLIKE THE PREVIOUS session shadowing a postie, a hard day of journalism doesnât quite wear me out. On days not spent at the track, Iâve been kept awake by low-level anxiety attacks. Iâm fretting, as is my wont, over the wayward course of my life.
These days, Iâm no longer afraid of getting old. In fact, I prefer my thirties to my twenties. I wear better clothes and avoid draft beer. Iâve finished War and Peace and given up on trying to read Proust. The hay fever that ruined my childhood summers now affects me less severely; I donât catch cold nearly as easily; Iâm able to rest on planes. My decrepitude has come with abundant blessings.
Now what bothers me is the idea that Iâm behind. Friends have gone further in their careers, acquired the objects, relationships, and experiences that denote a rich, un-squandered life. Iâm competitive, after all.
I stay up later than I should and after lying in bed for two hours, I get up with the intention of transcribing the interview with the rock star. I get to the part of this interview about horseracing and listen to it twice. I tilt my head back. Pinned on the corkboard above my computer screen is the to-do list I made earlier in December. With the new year arriving, I put together a list of things I wanted to have accomplished by the following year. As a form of stress relief, I compulsively made lists, breaking inapproachable burdens into bite-sized, component tasks. It was this format, favoured by obsessive males around the world, that I used to chart my life goals.
1. BECOME A HOME OWNER
2. FIND TRUE LOVE
3. SETTLE DOWN & START A FAMILY
4. SEE THE WORLD
5. LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE
6. START A RETIREMENT PLAN
7. GET A TATTOO
The list, of course, is a joke. As a matter of principle, to-do lists shouldnât take a lifetime to complete. They shouldnât hang above you in reproach, like an eviction notice. To-do lists are made in order to provide the pleasure of crossing them out.
With that in mind, I take down the list and cross out the first item: 1. BECOME A HOME OWNER . After all, didnât I substitute that task with a way cooler acquisition? With pen in hand, I alter my first entry: 1. HOME OWNERSHIP BOUGHT A RACEHORSE.
It was unlikely that I would legitimately be able to cross off any of the other items on my list in the near future. But what was keeping me from finding other substitutions? Instead of seeing the world or picking up another language, maybe I could learn to play backgammon or master Morse code.
And maybe instead of getting married, I could hook up with someone online. With that in mind, and two glasses of Crown Royal in my belly, I notice that Linda Leeâa source of heartache two years agoâis available for online chat. Sheâs in Toronto now, three hours ahead, so she must have just gotten out of bed. We havenât spoken over those two years, not even a cursory hello when I added her as a Facebook friend. I click onto her profile and look at pictures of her cat, her boyfriend, her road trip through Morocco. I click through all the photos of her, then loop through them again. The most recent photos of her no longer feature the aforementioned boyfriend, though her status is still set as âIn a Relationship.â
I argue with myself. If she wanted to talk to me, she could talk to me. I wasnât the one who moved away. I wasnât the one who acted awfully. Well, I sort of acted awfully, but she made things worse. I click onto her name and consider typing âhello,â but what keeps me from chatting with her is a message from another person of interest, Celeste:
CELESTE: Whatcha doing up so late?
KC: Up to no good.
CELESTE: Har-har.
Celeste lives in Kentucky. Last I heard she was married to a mathematician.
KC: You?
CELESTE: I just got back from a run. Whatâs new with you?
KC: I own a racehorse.
CELESTE: Figures... what????
KC: Long
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