If Life Is as Good as People Claim, Why Does It Feel Like I’m Just Waiting for Its Conclusion?
by Adrian Potter
If heaven was on earth, I would ask for all the small pleasures
I crave but never request because doing so would feel sinful.
And for that statement, I’ll surely catch hell. This admission
will upset all the righteous and judgmental folks who read it.
I’m a man of complex simplicity. What I want, mainly, is a
year that won’t test my patience before it ends. The ability
to choose my battles and weapons wisely. A care package
on my porch and no bills in the mailbox. More chances
to see the summer breeze slow waltz with the trees
or new grass sprout from a yard that was clearly dying.
To hear my wife say I’m sweet when I feel wicked
as this world that wants to whittle me down. You see,
like many, I was born, and things only got worse from there.
In the empty chill of a therapist’s office, I sigh and confess
everything I should stop doing and get told every habit
I need to start. But none of that sounds like living to me.
I run endless miles on a treadmill some mornings, knowing
it’s a frayed metaphor for my tenuous existence. When what
I most desire is to never need to worry about performance
reviews or creditors calling and to spend all my time reading,
browsing record shops, and helping others. For the people
I care about to never feel pain. To learn how to make biscuits
from scratch. For the ball in pickup basketball with the game
on the line. To receive signs from God that the mistakes I make
can eventually be made right. I’m a card-carrying member of
the self-help-becomes-self-hatred club, holding survival by
my teeth like a baby does a nipple. Living remains as basic
as listening to A Love Supreme by John Coltrane while folding
laundry that I’ve neglected for a week. Waking up unsure
whether I should give up or try again. Watching personal
growth gurus preach their gospel of synthetic optimism
on YouTube until I scream and wonder if manufacturing
positivity is worth all the effort. Still, there is something
about knowing what’s most likely to end you that pushes
you to persist with more passion. I remain certain my demise
will be triggered by the self-sabotaging behavior, fried foods,
and dysfunctional relationships I indulge in despite knowing
better. Red meat. Red wine. Myself, whistling my discontent
in an office while heating leftovers in a breakroom microwave,
never realizing I’m squandering my future. Or my secret talent
of reducing myself to ash without burning. Here, finally, I can
envision a world worth living in, against my better judgment.
One that feels like it has direction even though all roads
lead nowhere. A world I love so much that I cannot stop
letting it kill me, slowly. So if I must live, then I will keep on
doing it recklessly while feigning that I’ll never die. If I must.
