Today, I took an afternoon drive to town for a few errands. It’s a Saturday, the sun is shining, the sky is clear, it’s about seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit and the trees have turned their fall colors. Under different circumstances, this could have been the perfect day.
I’ve been thinking a bit about what my perfect day would actually look like, and it goes a little something like this.
I wake up to the smell of brewed coffee and home baked goods. I feel clear-headed, present, content. I have myself a brief but satisfying breakfast, take a shower, get dressed and step outside to greet the fresh air with a deep breath. I take the dog for a walk around the neighborhood and wave to the friendly faces at each stop. When we get back home, I’m ready to get started.
I set up my Windows 98 computer in the backyard on a rolling desk in the middle of the grass, complete with large CRT monitor, clacky keyboard and comfortable, supportive seat. It’s a quiet morning. The only sounds that can be heard are the birds chirping and the water flowing briskly down the nearby creek. I spend the next few hours completely immersed in a creative project of some kind. Nothing is around to distract me, my focus is entirely on the task at hand, and eventually, I make enough progress to put a smile on my face. Behind the screen, a row of multicolored trees forms an aesthetically pleasing backdrop. At any moment, I could decide to get up from what I’m working on and get lost in whatever lies behind them for a while. Perhaps, I do.
At around lunchtime, I dismantle my computer setup and come back inside to the kitchen. A bountiful mix of produce from the garden and fresh ingredients from the local market lines up and down the kitchen counter. I cobble together a large salad along with a charcuterie plate and proceed to chow down.
When I've had my fill, off I go to the reading room in the back of the house. The walls are lined with antique wooden bookshelves, complete with all the classics and my personal favorite hardback collections of printed text. I grab what I’ve been reading from off the shelf, lie back on the couch and continue on. The dog comes in to plop himself down next to me and we comfortably exist for a while in this configuration. Occasionally, I’ll turn my gaze toward the bay window and shoot a meaningful glance toward the row of trees at the back of the yard.
I’ve been reading for so long that I don’t realize how much time has gone by. I wrap up the current chapter, stick the book back on the shelf, return to the kitchen and start to prepare for the dinner party. It won’t be long before family, friends and the love of my life are all together in the same room. We have a grand feast and toast to good times. We’re all happy to see each other, and everybody gets a chance to be part of the conversation. Maybe we decide to break out some board games, or a few of us go play Smash Bros in the game room, or we all just decide to drink and converse merrily until it gets dark.
I don’t need fame and fortune. I don’t need a sports car, a mansion or a bunch of overpriced junk to stick on a shelf. I just want a life where this kind of day could be a reality once in a while. At this moment, it feels like a distant fantasy.
October 2026 has been a very challenging month. My September sickness bled over into the next page of the calendar. It wasn’t long after recovering and getting back to some amount of personal continuity that I discovered an old friend I’ve known since I was a teenager passed away. I haven’t been able to grieve properly for reasons I’ll get to in a minute, and even sitting a few weeks removed from this event, I still don’t exactly know how I’m supposed to contextualize it. He was the only person who would play certain online games with me, talk about certain topics with me, and relate to me in the way that he did. I lost a friend, but I might be equally afraid of the possibility that I’ve begun to lose another part of myself that nobody else will ever be able to understand.
Not even a week had gone by when I received the news that the buildings directly connected to the side of my apartment are set to be demolished later in the month. Given such little notice while stuck smack dab in the middle of a busy season at work, my partner and I were left with no choice but to spend every free moment of our lives packing up irreplaceable items in every nook and cranny of this place while scrambling to find movers, an open storage unit and a hotel that would board everyone who lives in this building, numerous pets included. Yesterday, we spent the entire day dealing with movers walking up and down our apartment, loading up boxes and furniture into a massive truck, driving 45 minutes away, waiting around in a hot car as they unloaded all of our items into storage, then paying them an outrageous sum of money to be reimbursed at a later date.
I sit now in a half-emptied room, with a half-empty soul, unpacking all of these words left boxed up in a dark corner for too long. I can’t help but experience this vague, ambient sensation plotted somewhere between the Bermuda Triangle of depression, anxiety and anger. I am powerless to stop whatever happens next, I am merely a passenger in a vehicle for which I cannot know the destination—I am being held hostage at gunpoint by the whims of fate.
What kills me the most about this situation is the uncertainty of it all. What is my life going to look like when I get back? Will I even be able to come back, or will some outside body decide I can no longer live in the place I’ve called home for the past six-and-a-half years? What would I even do in that situation? Am I going to have to find a new job and a place to live in some other town? Should I have been more proactive in preparing for this eventuality? I can’t help but let all the what-ifs and should-haves clang around inside my skull to the point that my forehead starts to throb uncontrollably.
Faced with a situation mired in adversity, I can at least find some solace within the people in my corner. The role players in each wing of this production are stepping up to provide support where they are able. My partner and I are very fortunate in ways I can’t even begin to describe here.
In the meantime, I have to remind myself that I can’t control the situation, and therefore, need to stop fretting over the uncertainty. The next month or two could be a rollercoaster of emotions, it could be the end of life as I once knew it, or it could be a bump in the road on the way back to normalcy. I have to let it play out, and I have to be strong no matter what. If I want to wake up to that perfect day, waiting somewhere out on the horizon, I have to get there first.