Transitions

    Back when I was a kid, Rhee and I used to drive down to California to visit my relatives once a year, on average. There was a point where we only went every other year, later on we went twice a year, so it averaged out to about once a year. One part that sticks out to me about those trips is the stretch of I-5 that goes over Mt. Shasta. Green, mountainous, but mostly unremarkable excepting the number of brake test areas and runaway truck ramps. I think the reason I remember it so vividly is that to my younger self it was the point where we transitioned from Oregon, which felt friendly and familiar, into California, which was not only large but strange and alien to me. It had different environments, a lot more people, and was much more important that Washington was at that time. The Tech industry didn’t dominate Washington the way it does today, and Washington doesn’t have nearly as many people. 

    When I think back to my childhood, most of what I remember is comprised of transitions. I remember when I graduated from middle school because everyone knew it would be a huge deal, so that moment stood out in my mind. I remember when I went to college, because the transition from high school to college was, and still is, one of the most important moments in the standard cultural narrative. I remember summer as the time between one stage and the next. That changed on the fall 2014, when I realized I would have to repeat a class that wouldn’t be available until the fall of next year, and I wouldn’t be able to graduate on time. That was when the transitions stopped meaning as much to me. 

      Ever since then, life has progressed slowly and rather unevenly, with a lot of me going “backwards” relative to the rest of the world. Because of this, until recently I operated as though I hadn’t changed since I turned eighteen. I’ve come to realize that my life has changed, and my opinions aren’t what they used to be either. I hesitate to say that I’ve grown though. I’ve felt for a long time that personal growth is something of a myth. We learn things, and we change, but I don’t feel that we necessarily become better or worse with time. We just pretend we do so that we can pretend that time makes us better. 

     I’d like to think that I’m a better person now than I was a decade ago. I’d like to think that I’ve grown up a little, learned a little more, become someone I couldn’t have imagined I’d be back then. I also know that I’m still waiting for the moment I know who I’m “Supposed” to be, the moment I thought I’d reached back then but began to realize that wasn’t the case. I always knew I wanted to write, to share myself with the world, but the world insisted that was a bad idea. It’s what I’m doing right now, and no one cares about what I have to say. They’re too busy focusing on their own problems to worry about mine. 

    Maybe grade school got me into the habit of waiting for the next big moment of my life, the moment when I knew I was ready for the next step. I lived in our world for so long, I’d come to expect that there would be a place for me, even when there wasn’t. Now I’m trying to make a place for myself. Sort of. 

     I feel like I had a point to make about the importance of the big moments in our lives, but if I did it got buried in a lot of musings on who I am as a person. This is part of the reason I’m grateful it’s become clear I won’t find an audience. I can just be myself and not worry about anyone getting angry at me. I know that I have flaws, and if I was a better person I’d work on fixing them, but I’ve always felt the world should be willing to let me not live in it if I don’t want to. That way I can retain my personality without making anybody miserable. But they keep insisting that not only do I have to live with other people, but my life will only get better if I keep trying. I don’t believe them, but until we figure out a way to let people live by themselves, I don’t think I have a choice.