The Infinite Starr

Everyday starts off like an ordinary day until it isnt.

That’s probably how most things happen.

Nobody wakes up Tuesday morning expecting Tuesday to become the reason they start looking at plane tickets by lunch.

The coffee tastes the same.

The computer turns on.

The same people need the same things they needed yesterday, except somehow today they need them faster.

Someone sends an email marked urgent about something that has apparently been urgent since last Thursday.

Someone else is unhappy.

Someone is always unhappy.

Some people do for a living what most people hate.

I’ve heard that somewhere before.

Maybe that’s why certain jobs pay you.

Not necessarily because the work is difficult.

Because somebody has to stand in the middle of the room while everybody throws tomatoes.

If everybody hates you and no matter how much you do it is never enough, you might as well just do it.

There’s a strange freedom in that.

Eventually you stop trying to win the imaginary contest where everyone leaves satisfied.

Nobody wins that contest.

The trophy doesn’t even exist.

Some weeks are going to be rough.

Others are just going to be.

But when the rough ones start outnumbering the ordinary ones, something happens.

You start looking at maps.

Not seriously at first.

Just casually.

The way people casually look at houses they cannot afford and dogs they absolutely do not need.

You open the map.

Zoom out.

There you are.

A tiny blue dot surrounded by highways.

So where should we go?

The mountains?

The ocean?

A plane?

A train?

An automobile?

Should we drive until the radio stations stop recognizing us?

Fly somewhere our phone doesn’t know the weather?

Walk until the shoes give up before we do?

Maybe we go back to the Red Rocks.

There is something about those enormous pieces of earth standing there like they know something.

They don’t answer emails.

They don’t schedule meetings.

They don’t explain themselves.

They have been sitting there longer than anyone who currently has an opinion about you has been alive.

There is something comforting about that.

Maybe that’s why life feels perfect there.

Not because it actually is.

Because the rocks couldn’t care less who you are.

They don’t know your job title.

They don’t know what you screwed up in 2017.

They don’t know who stopped speaking to you.

They don’t know what somebody said about you after you left the room.

They don’t even know your name.

For a few minutes, neither do you.

Or maybe the ocean.

The ocean is different.

Hot.

Sticky.

Sand absolutely everywhere it has no business being.

The water will probably be too cold.

You’ll stand ankle-deep negotiating with yourself like the ocean is going to warm up because you’ve finally arrived.

It won’t.

The ocean doesn’t negotiate.

Maybe that’s the attraction.

People negotiate constantly.

The ocean just keeps coming.

Wave.

Retreat.

Wave.

Retreat.

It doesn’t care whether anybody approves of the method.

Maybe the desert.

The air is hot.

The pavement is hotter.

The gambling is hotter than both.

A thousand lights convincing people that this time will be different.

Pull the lever.

Roll the dice.

Pick a number.

Maybe that’s what vacations are anyway.

A temporary bet against your own life.

You wager a few days believing that somewhere else might make you feel differently about here.

Sometimes it works.

Sometimes you just end up answering the same email beside a swimming pool.

Which defeats the entire purpose.

No internet.

No Wi-Fi.

No little red notifications announcing that someone somewhere has developed an emergency that apparently requires your immediate participation.

Just you.

The environment.

And a long road between where you are and somewhere.

But when you’ve been everywhere, there is only one place left to go.

Back.

Not backward.

Back.

There’s a difference.

Go somewhere you’ve already been and see whether it is still the same place.

It won’t be.

The restaurant might still be there.

The mountain hasn’t moved much.

The hotel probably replaced the carpet.

The road bends exactly where you remember it bending.

But something will be wrong.

Or right.

You won’t know immediately.

You’ll stand there staring at something you’ve seen before and realize the scenery didn’t change.

The person looking at it did.

Maybe that’s why returning somewhere can feel stranger than discovering somewhere new.

Memory preserves places incorrectly.

It freezes them around whoever we were when we left.

Then we return years later expecting to meet our old selves standing beside the vending machine.

They’re never there.

Influencers haven’t helped.

Apparently the internet decided every hidden waterfall, strange roadside motel, tiny diner, abandoned staircase, secret beach and hole in the earth needed a drone video.

Nothing is secret anymore.

There is always somebody standing in front of the thing you’re trying to experience taking seventeen pictures of themselves experiencing it.

So maybe don’t go anywhere.

Maybe disappear right here.

That’s possible too.

People think disappearing requires luggage.

It doesn’t.

You can disappear sitting in a conference room.

You can disappear at dinner.

You can disappear while someone is talking directly to you.

You can disappear while nodding.

Especially while nodding.

The body remains.

The mind quietly exits through an emergency door nobody else can see.

What happens when you stop applying yourself to the subject?

When you’re so uninterested that you simply dissolve into the crowd?

That’s a strange kind of invisibility.

Pretending to care.

Pretending to listen.

Pretending something matters because everyone around you agreed it should matter.

Every episode starts feeling like a rerun.

Different characters.

Same plot.

Someone is upset.

Someone wants validation.

Someone wants change.

Someone wants change as long as nothing actually changes.

Someone wants advice and then becomes offended when the advice does not agree with what they already decided.

Commercial break.

Next episode.

Same cast.

Maybe take a staycation.

Spend hours at the gym.

Put the headphones on and disappear beneath the weight.

There is something beautifully honest about iron.

It doesn’t care about excuses.

Two hundred pounds remains two hundred pounds regardless of how unfair your morning was.

Maybe dive into another book.

Someone else’s world.

Someone else’s disaster.

Someone else’s characters making terrible decisions so you can temporarily stop watching real people make theirs.

Or write your own.

Actually, maybe that’s easier.

Write your own story.

At least then you can decide which characters deserve another chapter.

Give yourself permission to do the thing you would rather do instead of constantly doing the thing expected of you.

That’s harder than it sounds.

Expectation has excellent marketing.

It dresses itself like responsibility.

Sometimes it is responsibility.

Sometimes it’s just somebody else’s preference wearing a necktie.

The trick is figuring out which is which.

They are going to talk anyway.

They always do.

Most of them don’t even have new material.

Same complaints.

Same villains.

Same explanation for why nothing is ever their responsibility.

Some people have been telling the same story for twenty years and still haven’t noticed they’re the only character appearing in every chapter.

That’s interesting.

Nobody wants to talk about that.

They want validation.

They want someone sitting across from them nodding slowly and confirming that yes, every person they have ever encountered was somehow unreasonable.

Every boss.

Every friend.

Every relationship.

Every neighbor.

Every coworker.

Every family member.

Every stranger at the grocery store.

At some point, mathematics becomes involved.

If everyone except you is somehow making it work, there is at least a possibility that the universe didn’t organize an international conspiracy around ruining your Wednesday.

But nobody says that out loud in group therapy.

Certainly not.

Imagine.

Everyone wants to be heard.

Everyone wants their feelings validated.

Everyone wants a room full of strangers to confirm that their interpretation of their life is the correct one.

Maybe it is.

Maybe it isn’t.

Feelings can be real without the story built around them being accurate.

Nobody likes that sentence.

Because being the victim of your own life comes with one enormous benefit.

You never have to rewrite anything.

Someone else is always holding the pen.

The childhood.

The ex.

The parents.

The boss.

The economy.

The friend.

The stranger.

The weather.

Mercury probably gets blamed eventually.

Anything except the hand attached to your own arm.

Of course our stories matter to us.

They should.

But does your story matter to a room full of strangers?

Not the way you think it does.

They’re waiting for their turn.

That’s the part nobody notices.

While you’re talking, someone else is preparing what they’re going to say.

While they’re talking, someone else is remembering something that happened to them.

Everybody wants to be heard by people who are waiting to speak.

Maybe that’s why so many conversations feel empty.

Nobody is listening.

They’re taking turns being witnessed.

I used to know people like that.

People who carried the same suitcase everywhere.

They would open it in every room.

Dump everything onto the floor.

Ask everyone to inspect the contents.

Then carefully pack it all back up again.

Nothing could be thrown away.

Every grievance was a souvenir.

Every betrayal had sentimental value.

Every wound had become proof of identity.

You could suggest leaving something behind.

They would look horrified.

That happened to me.

Yes.

It did.

But the strange thing about luggage is that after carrying it long enough, you forget you’re allowed to put it down.

I walked away from those people too.

Maybe that sounds cold.

Maybe it is.

But there are only so many times you can watch someone stand beside an unlocked cage explaining why they cannot leave.

Eventually you stop pointing at the door.

Eventually you stop explaining that the lock isn’t locked.

Eventually you stop offering directions.

And one day you simply keep walking.

Which brings us back to the map.

It’s still open.

Mountains.

Ocean.

Desert.

Red Rocks.

A road heading somewhere.

A plane leaving somewhere.

A train passing through somewhere.

The blue dot waits patiently.

You stare at it long enough and realize something strange.

You weren’t actually trying to decide where to go.

You were trying to decide what you were allowed to leave behind.

The job will still exist.

The emails will multiply.

Someone will be disappointed.

Someone will talk.

Someone will misunderstand.

Someone will tell the story differently.

Someone always does.

So maybe the destination never mattered.

Maybe that’s why none of them sounded quite right.

You weren’t looking for a mountain.

Or an ocean.

Or a desert.

Or a hotel without Wi-Fi.

You weren’t even looking for a vacation.

You were looking for the place where nobody needed you to explain yourself.

And apparently you’ve been there before.

You just didn’t recognize it because the last time you visited, you thought it was loneliness.

Funny.

Years later, standing in exactly the same place, it had another name.

Freedom.