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Boiling Off the Fat

Oh hey, insomnia.

It’s me, Matt.

I know you like pitter-pattering around the periphery of life changes, haunting those who make them, trying to convince them that they have something to be alarmed about.

Have something to reconsider.

Have some nerve-wrapped balls of stress needing to be unwound like yarn balls.

But I also know that you, too, shall pass. And I will actually be able to get some sleep.

And will stop anthropomorphizing some state of being.

***

It’s 4:10 AM on the Saturday after my last day of work. After a carb-rich meal and two delicious drinks at my favorite restaurant. After a cathartic ear-lowering–shedding dead ends and weight like albatrosses around my neck.

Liquid comfort...and chocolate to boot

But still, here I am. Wide awake and listening to the rain pouring down outside.

I guess I’m not sweating the bags under my eyes because I’ve been here before–wondering how long it’ll take my body to detoxify from the past three intensely stressful years.

And I guess it’s sort of apropos that the last time I felt this way, I was choosing to leave graduate school. Because, in many ways, this departure is haunted by many of the same shades.

Ghosts of professions past, of passions blasted asunder.

This time, though, my archaeological palimpsest has been balled up and thrown atop a mental pyre, lit along with the contents of my office–the collapsible files bursting with pottery typologies and lithic assemblages, the dendritic diagrams of subjective interpretations of soil-caked artifacts, the military training certificates, the increasingly despicable email chains that sparked in me a more deep-seated antipathy for failed academics who wave certificates in lieu of morals: it’s everything that fits so neatly into a banker’s box, making my leave of that past life seem all the more cliche, like a scene from a movie.

Past lives...

 ***

But I know that I’ll shed this uncomfortable skin–let it slough off with every new experience that I create for myself, that gets me closer to who I really want to be.

A person unshackled to the past, making the future happen with every new step.

And while that means that I’ve got to start off green, growing bit by bit each day, I know I can do it.

Something green and growing...

Because I have so many reasons to make it work. The best of which is sleeping now, recuperating from his own weekly battles.

Because we all have wars to wage. And the endgame of each isn’t necessarily about winning. But rather, learning how to distill out the best strategies for future battles. And knowing when it’s best to direct your energies elsewhere.

It’s about skimming away the boiled-off fat, and starting with what’s left.

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The Great Unknown

The irreverent wrapper-crinkling garnered a glance from a nearby conference-goer. Seconds later, mid-way through my foodgasmic rendition of an Herbal Essences commercial, I got more than a few consternated stares and even more furrowed brows.

So maybe a church wasn’t the best place to indulge my slightly sordid, truffle-inspired culinary ecstasy. Still, it wasn’t my fault that the little blobs of joy were eyes-rolling-back-in-my-head good.

Plus, the whole venue was a little repressive, and the guy on the cross was a major buzzkill.

While my sweet, sweet sacrilege left the more pious in the crowd exasperated, my taste buds thanked me. Actually, if they had little knees, they’d probably get down and praise the cacao gods.

Alright, enough religiosity. I’m beginning to have flashbacks to my altar boy years.

And we don’t want that.

***

The night before—somewhere between eating part of a Playboy Roll and realizing I was having a really, really good hair day—I found myself banging on a parking garage pay machine, yelling, “Where the fuck is my money?!”

That is, until I looked down and realized the dispensed change was peppered with Sacajawea dollars. (Yes, they’re still used as legal tender. Who knew?) So, that particular anger mismanagement moment was wholly unnecessary. Especially since it caused the Prius driver behind me to lock her doors. Then again, if I’d reserved a room at a downtown hotel, I wouldn’t have had to accost machines and demand their papery tribute.

Or scare eco-conscious drivers.

Instead, I ended up at a quality establishment approximately 500 miles away. There, along with my room keys, I received a handout listing area attractions. And there it was, directly beneath Biltmore Estate: Super Walmart.

Because when you go to Asheville, you go not for the Smoky Mountains National Park or the revitalized historic downtown, but the quintessential marker of American consumerist consumption.

You decide to which I’m referring.

***

Regardless of my far-flung accommodations, I made the most of it. Because when a conference is held in a trendy, historic area, there’s no shortage of foodie places for hanging out and getting bombed. I mean, er, networking.

And while the pumpkin-spice tortellini and chocolate crème brûlée and champagne-bookstore were amazing, the most poignant moment came at the end.

And isn’t that always the way? Right when you think you can mentally pack your bags and hit “Shuffle,” something smacks you across the face and shakes your shoulders.

Like a random, passing statement between two strangers.

“It’s very frightening to me, the whole unknown of it.”

I know, I know. What’s the big deal? It wasn’t some ad hoc sonnet or poem–nothing earth-shattering. 

But isn’t it bizarrely beautiful? And with such perfect delivery.

In her mid-forties, the woman sat on a stairway in a tailored suit, one hand massaging her neck and the other gesturing—her fingers entertaining a nearly spent cigarette–to a tall man in a worn tweed suit and tie. Her eyes sparkled, yet conveyed defeat. The sun beamed, and the air carried a chill, along with a few withered, colored leaves.

Albeit fleeting, the exchange jarred me to such a degree that, after I passed by, I pulled out my journal and jotted everything down, along with the time: 4:35 PM.

And why is the time important, you might wonder? Well, it’s not.

At least not right now.

But when I’m flipping back through my journal years into the future, years into the unknown, I can know that, at that particular place and time on September 20, a stranger reminded me that I’m constantly flirting with the future.

And I’ll never know what relationship I’ll have with it, nor how it will curl around my life’s edges like wind around leaves–coloring it with experience, carrying it along a new path.