Wine, Parking Lots, and Yelling
I was walking home late one night after a trip to target. It was the type of Target run where I look at everything I want to get, put all of those things in my cart, but end up actually leaving with what I knew I came for in the first place — a bottle of white-blend wine and a box of some kind of sour/sweet gummy worms. You’re welcome, body.
Even though I was only 20 minutes walking distance away from home, I could feel the weight of the week in my poor poor calves and figured I’d just Uber it. Only thing is, my phone died. ‘No biggie’, I tell myself — just like I did when Trump started talking about running for President, ‘I’ll just walk to my office from the bus stop, charge my phone real quickity quick, and be on my way’.
Oh sweet, sweet, naive me.
I reach my office, rummaging through my purse struggling to find my keys…and then, like a scene from That’s So Raven, I saw my keys exactly where I accidentally left them in my office. Then it hits me, the realization that there was no way I was getting those bad boys till the A.M and that I was definitely walking home. All of this made me think that the longer I’m in my twenties, the more I relate to this picture of Yandy crying:
By this point, my calves still hurt, my stomach now mysteriously hurts - a recurring issue that’s probably stress related, and I’m contemplating just popping that bottle open right on the street and throwing it back on my unavoidable walk home. Instead, I take a deep breath and decide against it (mainly because I remember the illegality of openly drinking) and try to think of the walk home like the journey of Frodo and Sam — me, obviously as Frodo and the wine, Sam.
I’m not past the parking lot when I hear the sound of glass against pavement.
I look down at my feet to see a torn target bag and my wine, still intact, rolling away from me. (Maybe here I became Gollum and the wine was the ring? Either way that’s one too many Lord of The Rings references).
After picking it up, honestly surprised it didn’t shatter from the fall, I looked around the completely empty parking lot and yelled out, “I’m an adult!” to absolutely no one in particular. Yeah, I really did this. You did not misread.
Even though there wasn’t a physical person there I really wanted everyone/thing/myself to know that adulthood for me was a Fact, that it should be respected, and that I really don’t appreciate having to walk back so late with a ripped target bag and mysterious stomach pain!
I grabbed a handful of the non name brand candy I bought, which turns out was pretty gross, and ate it. Again, you’re welcome, body!
I almost forgot about this whole thing happening until a friend of mine said she needed to hear something funny and I instantly thought, oh my gosh what about this real life event that happened to me which is the kind of funny that you laugh/cry about later!
I looked around the completely empty parking lot and yelled out, “I’m an adult!” to absolutely no one in particular.
I’m thinking about it again now because I’m noticing how overwhelming everything feels all of the time these days. A few months ago I was talking to a friend who said this and I immediately disagreed. I was like, do you mean how overwhelming everything can feel? Trying to suggest that feeling overwhelmed is somewhat of a choice, when she definitely meant how overwhelming everything does feel in one’s twenties. Now I get it.
Life does switch between smiling Yandy and crying Yandy pretty easily these days, and for a regularly high functioning person whose dealt/dealing with depression, it doesn’t make it any easier.
The things that do make it better are actually the moments of yelling at no one in particular in an empty parking lot, reminding myself of the truth in something (adulthood) that at times feels very untrue. When I’m showing and telling myself that “adulthood” isn’t monolithic but is a very jagged and squiggly, like both the squiggly eyebrow challenge and the many adults who participated in it, I broaden my own expectations and give myself grace.
Whenever a friend and I go over our weeks she ends with saying, “We’re doing it”. What “it” is exactly we have yet to define but some days “it” is just getting up, going to work, and trying to make sense of being back in the city, back at my alma mater, being at a new church, defining a different role, and celebrating the little victories.
That same friend told me to pay attention to the things that excite me, counting them as victories.
(Side note: All of these references to “friends of mine” really make me want to make another LOTR/quasi spiritual reference but I won’t).
There were two victories this week. One was getting the chance to facilitate a conversation on MLK Jr.’s philosophy of non-violence, what non-violence has historically meant and looked in Chicago, and how it can look in everyday life. I was performing, and speaking, and being presently in the moment in a way I haven’t had the opportunity to in a long time.
I yelled at and for myself in that parking lot as a reminder of what I was, but Wednesday yelled at me as to what I could do. Reminding me that I’m an actor, like an actor actor. That performing has always scared me but more importantly, it excites me.
On Thursday this week, I hosted the kick off of a conversational event for students at the university I work at.
We were talking about Dr. Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, ethics, politics, whiteness, Bill Cosby, and a heck of a lot more, and I was sitting in the conversation — the first event I’ve created in this new position, and I felt so at home in being challenged, leading, listening, and thinking around a varied group of people.
And it clicked.
If that night in the parking lot yelled what I was, and Wednesday yelled what I forgot I love to do, then Thursday yelled that where I am now is more than alright, maybe even a meaningful step in the road (to Mordor to return the ring).
And in the weirdest way, what started out at as a sadly hilarious real life thing to happen became revelatory and being twenty-something was a step above OK this past week.
