red light, blue light
I haven’t written on this for a while. Well, unfortunately, my current circumstances have put me in a mild existential funk: I am back home living with my mom and working at a chemical plant for the summer. I work 10 hour days and my total commute time is about 3 hours each day. I wake up at 4:27am Monday-Thursday. It sucks. The plant is huge and projects move slowly and it’s not stimulating and it’s impersonal and indifferent and it kills ambition and it lures you with money or security or benefits but it’s a trap because people stay for decades then they look at the interns and say well it’s too late and I fell for it or they show us contempt, because they can still smell the youth on us. Because our flesh is vivid and skin pulled tight on our faces and our hair is illustrious and full.
Our generation is almost defined by the idea that we can do whatever we want and work wherever we want if we put our mind to it, well really if ambition meets preparation meets circumstance. I am so so thankful for the job exposure and pay and contacts, but my heart rate literally increases with anxiety if I dwell to long on the thought of working here full-time after I graduate. Everything that makes me unique, everything that gives me passion, everything that challenges me, everything that fills me with love is strangled by this job. This job tells me job security and money are important, it tells me I should be selfless enough to sacrifice my well-being for the sake of a potential future families decent suburban home and suburban education. I have respect for those who sacrificed their well-beings for their families but at this point I have no obligation. At this point the culture of this corporation lies to me and tries to lead me into a hole.
I’ve recently been processing some other events in my life and someone asked me what I’ve been going through. Through verbalizing I realized this job was part of it. This interesting image of colors popped into my mind as a sort of abstract analogy:
I spend 14 hours of my waking day either at work or in the process of being there. I spend less than 3 hours of my waking day back at home away from work (though still needing time for dinner, lunch prep, any chores). I associate work with this dark gray blue and my time at home with a dull brown-red. If you looked at my day as a hole it would be blue-light, red-light, black. Blue-light, red-light black. I recently went back to my college house for our house party, a murder mystery party, small bike tour, and meeting/hanging with a famous city street artist. There were so many people, so many tastes and personalities, so many different types of foods, exercise, drinks, so much laughter, tears of sorrow, tears of joy, regrets, fears, serenity. Can you imagine the dynamic coloring of my palette each day?! That excites me. Purple polka-dots for jokes, green stripes for coffee dates, brown splatters for beer, red smears for my roommates, blue drops for tears, yellow brush strokes for excitement. There was and is so much diversity in life! How could I ever yield, when could I ever compromise such beauty through people and experiences...
I appreciate what I can learn from living with my mom, and what my dad sacrificed with us so we can be where we are but I do not want to turn into a blue-light, red-light, then darkness, I want to sparkle with splotches of sterling silver and have an aura of austere amber.
