Anywhere Is in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

I haven’t written because we’re back in lockdown, and really, how much can I write about the amount of television I watch? If my life was dull before quarantine, during quarantine it’s become the living embodiment of an Enya song.

Which isn’t really fair because I quite like Enya.

For some reason, yesterday was a jammed day in the phone calls department. I mean, let’s face it, I wasn’t really ever getting a lot of communication from people. I could go entire months without my phone ringing or receiving a text that wasn’t from my Postmates delivery driving asking where the hell I lived.... It got even more spare once I changed my phone number and told exactly a baker’s dozen of my contacts.

Yesterday, however, out of nowhere Olga called me. We used to talk regularly, and then during my whole mental breakdown/early thirties, we severely lost touch. I almost let it show how startled I was when she divulged that next month is her fortieth birthday. I did some quick math to figure out how long we’ve known each other. I met her when she was 22, so do that math for yourself.

We spoke briefly in November of last year and haven’t spoken since, which is quite a change since before my suicide attempt a few years ago, we spoke at least monthly. It’s amazing how decaying the years become when apathy becomes your new companion. It took us some time to find our rhythm but eventually we did find it.

Olga started as my therapist but grew into a very close friend, who knows more about my deepest secrets than almost anyone else in this world. I forgot what it was like to have that kind of shorthand; I didn’t have to explain anything because the context of our lives filled in the blanks.

Shortly after I finished my phone call with Olga, Sarah called me. Sarah is my oldest friend. We’ve been friends since we were three years old. Probably the only shorthand that is greater than Olga’s. We don’t speak as often since she achieved her lifelong dream to become a wife and mother. She has two children that rule her life now.

I was very amused at one point when we were having a conversation that went like this, “We are serious about getting out of California, and Nashville seems like the perfect place to - LUCAS DON’T YOU DARE GO OUT THERE!!! LUCAS, WHAT DID MOMMY SAY?!? CLOSE THAT DOOR RIGHT NOW!! - it’s the perfect place to settle because we could have a much greater quality of life compared to California.”

Never in my life had I heard Sarah scream like that.

I am not one to critique another’s parenting skills, but I think I can assess the transformation of my friend, and I have never heard her like this. I know parenting is difficult, and the last time we spoke, which was in February, she was lamenting the fact that her husband has maneuvered it so that he is always the good guy in every situation, thus making Sarah the bad guy. I’m sure that that has to take its toll.

There really was nothing but nonsense to talk about, but I think it’s nice to have those kinds of empty conversations. I’m tired of everything be drama. Every conversation is a confrontation about Black Lives Matter or the veracity of the pandemic, it seems. For once, it was nice to be on the same wavelength with someone and glide past the controversial to just talk about Goldie Hawn’s hairstyle in Death Becomes Her.

After I got off the phone with Sarah, in just a few short hours, my cousin Xander called. Now, he is the exact opposite of both Olga and Sarah. I met him just a few years ago when yet another portion of the family was discovered. He’s younger than myself by quite a few years, I think he just barely turned 22. But we got on quite well....

Although, he definitely is skeptical about the pandemic, does not believe Black Lives Matter and believes that Donald Trump is the greatest thing to happen to America since Dwight Eisenhower. That conversation was like a waltz, we were dancing around subjects and not really getting into anything meaty.

Apparently his grandmother passed away from covid a few days ago, but this is still not enough proof for him since the hospital “forged” the death certificate as part of a Democratic plot to steal the election.

I’m just going to leave that explanation there…

The one thread that went through all three of those conversations was simply what my plans were. The truth is, I just want to get out of this country and go somewhere else. Although I have my ideas of where I want to go, when people ask me where I want to go, I remain ambiguous. So then they say, “Well where is better than this?” And I simply reply, “Anywhere is”