Chapter 2: Leave the Rotting Until You’re Twice as Old as Me

It wasn’t that things weren’t going right. That would imply there was any forward momentum to some point that I was marching towards, no matter whether it was the right point or not. Things just weren’t really going at all. Smaller assignments piled up and then got completed all right before the deadline, but that was never any worry. It was this final project that has been staring me in the face, boring a hole in my head since the start of the year, that I just couldn’t get any movement towards at all. 

I was trying to start a car in -40 degree weather, and it was endlessly turning over. 

On one hand, having creative projects be the bulk of your course load made the weight much lighter to carry for 4 months. On the other, the weight was made up of far slipperier material. You had to stop and pick it up every couple kilometers, and it would just not stay in place. 

On paper it wasn’t that hard. A short song using some of the synthesis and recording techniques we learned throughout the year. However, actually coming up with any ideas that made me want to actually work on them and apply myself was like pulling teeth. Each idea more rooted in the gums, further and further away from anything workable and interesting. 

Seemed like a microcosm of everything going wrong, or rather everything that isn’t moving at all for me lately. A list of qualities and attributes that would sound interesting on a character sheet, but barely make a real person in practice. If someone were to try and roleplay as me their performance would constitute more of a tangible entity than anything I could ever do with it. 

I wasn’t unable to do these things. I had done them in the past, when having the energy to go out and just do something seemed like an infinite resource that kept replenishing after time and time alone. Now that resource seemed locked behind gates I had no key for. 

I often wonder what was different about me then and me now. I have more freedom, more ability, more knowledge, and certainly more experience than I had, but as a kid I just kinda did whatever I could with whatever time I had. It was like doing things was a given. I was a kid, a shark who needs to stay in motion, forever swimming lest I hit the seabed and decay. 

That’s what I was feeling now. The decay. I was young, 21, but I was decaying already. I felt bad for thinking like this. If I told anyone over the age of 40 this they would tell me this decade was the decade where you can do stuff and experiment and figure stuff out. “Leave the rotting ‘till you're twice as old as me,” I could hear my dad saying to me as I wallow. 

How do other people do it? It’s a question I think about a lot, especially when I people-watch. During my break I don’t really have anything better to do except sit at some table and watch the people around me. I like to imagine what kinda lives they live. Maybe that girl is a biology major, working her way up to some research paper on Arctic foxes. Maybe that guy is a game designer, stressed out about how his team is falling apart because the project they’ve spent half the semester working on just isn’t fun. 

Sometimes they get really elaborate. I’ll wonder if the girl sitting three tables across from me with a Japanese textbook has plans to travel there because there is an opportunity at the university to teach English for a year abroad just to get away from home. Maybe when she was growing up she watched a lot of anime on a terrible TV while her parents fought her older siblings. Maybe it was a comfort for her that provided an escape, so much so that the idea of living in a foreign country gives you a feeling more like home than the house your family lives in could ever provide. 

Maybe the guy two tables in front of me talking really loudly and enthusiastically to his friend is working up the courage to ask him out. Maybe they were childhood friends, and they came to this university together, despite it being neither of their first picks. Maybe the thought of going to a different school than the other was a deal breaker. Maybe the idea of losing that is too much of a hurdle to overcome so he stays silent, and the feelings never get addressed, because even if it’s not what he wants, he’s just happy to have him in his life. 

Maybe it’s just a girl I’ll never know studying Japanese for a reason I’ll never learn. Maybe it’s just a guy talking to his friend. 

These stories I think of are more interesting than anything I could dream of myself achieving. It feels like these fake people and fake stories I’ve created based on a two second glance at someone feel more real than anything I could actually do. 

Why do even the people I make up in my head get to live interesting lives while it feels like I’ll die while the conductor takes their first breath?

Something is deeply wrong with me. 

I end up giving Julia a call. Maybe talking to her friend would help. Maybe it wouldn’t, it’s hard to say, but it couldn’t hurt right? Plus, I hadn’t talked to her in a while, and I know that when I get depressed I stop hanging out with my friends, which means I get lonely, which only makes me more depressed. Cycles and all that. 

ring ring

ring ring 

ring ring

ring ring

“Hello?” A voice finally picked up. 

“Hey,” God, I hope I didn’t sound as despondent as I felt. 

“Oh, hey! What’s up? I haven’t heard from you in a while. You feeling okay?” Julia said with genuine concern. There were a lot of things you could say about Julia Stone, but apathetic was not one of them. It was nice having a friend who genuinely cared about you, even if you passively ignored her for a month or two during a depressive episode. It seemed like she really understood what it was like, which was odd considering how bubbly she was all the time. If there was anyone on this planet who could have gone through life without ever feeling sad, it was probably Julia. 

“Yeah,” I tried to lie at first. It was instinctual to hide how I was feeling, but that kinda defeated the whole purpose of this phone call, “Well… no. Not really, but I’m trying to feel better which is why I reached out.”

“Aww well I’m sorry to hear you’re not doing the best, but I am happy that you called me! I’m happy to hear from you. Is there anything you wanted to talk about?” She asked. 

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“Uh… yeah. I wanted to ask, wait, I’m not interrupting anything am I?” Just as I was making progress my anxieties took over and had to give her, or more accurately myself an easy out of this conversation. 

“No, not at all. Plus even if you were I wouldn’t mind. I do like talking to you, and it sounds like you need someone right now,” Did I sound like that? I mean, it was like I was crying or anything. I hadn’t really cried since I was a kid, instead letting my sadness manifest into apathy as I grew older. Apathy was a lot harder to get yelled at for, whether from your parents or peers. She was right though. I did need someone. 

“I do, I guess,” I say, being wishy-washy so as to not come off desperate, “I, uh, this might be a weird question, but do you remember when you were telling me about your friend, what’s her name, uh, Lisa?” 

“Leah,” she corrected. 

“Yeah, Leah. You mentioned her a couple times, but I’ve never met her. You said she went through some kind of phase in her life where she struggled with depression and, I don’t know, I just hear that and I hear how you talk about her now and I wanted to ask like what she did to get over that? Or if you know anything about this kinda stuff? Sorry if this is like, a weird question.” I rambled on. I just hoped I wasn’t intruding by asking her about her friend.  

“Oh!” Julia exclaimed, and then giggled a bit. Weird. It seemed like she was genuinely caught off guard by my question. “Well, yeah Leah is really cool and she definitely did go through a really rough phase when she was younger, though, I think Leah is a bit of a special case, but I can definitely help you!” You could practically hear her smiling through the phone. I wish I could be like that. You know, just bubbly and happy instead of apathetic. If someone called me up and told me something like that, it’s not that I wouldn’t want to help them, but I just couldn’t get enthusiastic about it. Maybe that makes me a bad person, or maybe I’m just consumed by this apathy. I don’t know. 

“What do you mean by ‘special case’, though? Didn’t you talk about Leah when you were talking about confidence or something like that?” I inquired. It made me a bit sad that my initial idea of asking about Leah didn’t seem like seem like it was bearing fruit, but Julia still seemed happy to help so there was no harm in asking. 

“Well, that’s probably a story for Leah to tell you herself if she decides to, but you’re right I did mention confidence was a part of it. Do you feel like you don’t have confidence in yourself?” She asked. Right to the point I guess. 

“I mean, I guess so. Yeah. I don’t feel confident in anything I do, really. I just happen to be here and I just happen to be doing something or another. It’s hard to feel, well, excited about anything if I’m the one doing it.”

“Hmmm, well, we could talk to Leah if you really wanted to. I remember her saying something similar, so she might have some insight. Did you wanna do that?” She asked. 

“Uh, yeah, if she’s okay with that? I haven’t met her and I don’t want to just start talking about trauma or whatever with someone new,” I wasn’t particularly scared about opening up to a new person. I was more worried about putting an unfair burden on someone I had just met and making them talk about something personal with someone new. It felt unfair. 

“Yeah, I can see if she’s okay with that. She usually is so I think we’ll be fine.”

“Okay. If she’s okay with it. That sounds nice.”

“Yeah! Plus you finally get to meet one of my best friends!”

“I do, I do. It’ll be nice to see you again,” I meant it genuinely. I always felt bad isolating like this everytime I get depressed, so talking with someone as upbeat and caring as Julia definitely made me feel a bit better. 

“It’ll be nice to see you too! We gotta hang out more often, at least to keep you from spiralling so often,” she half-joked. It was true. Seeing my friends did help keep my apathy at bay. 

“True,” I gave a little laugh, “So… when do you wanna meet?” I asked. 

“Well, we usually meet up the three of us, Leah, Sam, and I, for a movie night on Saturday’s. I’m sure we could spare another invite.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude on anything…”

“Jeez now you are starting to sound like Leah. No, come! It’ll be fun. It’s my night  to pick and we all know I have the best taste in film so you are definitely coming!” She bragged a bit. Even though I couldn’t see her I bet she was beaming. Her smile carries through her voice in a way no one else’s does. 

“It’s true, you do.”

“I know. Now are you coming or not?” She asked. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll come. If you say it’s okay.” Now I was smiling. Something to look forward to. And I had initiated it! Or at least, some of it. I called her up at least. 

“It’s absolutely okay. I’ll see you Saturday!”

“Yeah, see you Saturday.”

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