Passengers

January 1, 2021

And so, life halts.

For some of us. The immutable march of it beats on for many.

The healthcare system is completely overwhelmed, landlords expectant of their tenant’s rent checks, so many of the businesses that used to color the busyness of our daily rhythms are struggling for a heartbeat now. And, of course, so many people are sick and dying. This was not the expected reality on March 13 when we were sent home from work to continue our daily agendas from our living rooms while always wearing sweatpants, but it’s the horrible reality now.

In the beginning of it all, I enjoyed my time at home, and after being able to safely spend the spring and summer with my family in Colorado, I returned eager for the solitude of my LA life. I’d take 2 hour walks most evenings, re-decorate my apartment, binge shows on my own TV with my own preferred sound and picture settings, maybe get a tan while reading some long-loved books on the roof of my building. I did all those things, even the tan, but found an unexpected companion to all my longed-for, independence-oriented frivolities in my ranks.

Somewhere in all the “me-focusing” (I blame the long walks) I became compulsively introspective, examining my identity from every angle, picking myself apart to oblivion until oblivion was all that was left, and yes, the not-very-poetic punctuation of mortality became the emergent, ever-present backdrop to my anxiety. It seemed I could easily quiet fears about “what may become of me” in the short-term, let’s say, between now and when I’m 50. Looking at the precedent of my life, I could say with confidence, it will work out. But anxiety had me opt for something less solvable. Where every cell of my physiology begs for the comfort of my control (i.e. me pretending I am God), my anxiety strategically settled on the uncontrollable, unsolvable issue of all human life, and in that, had its daily fuel. I woke up each day addled with unwanted thoughts about the manner of death, the deaths of others, anticipating the experience of death and the sitting around in eternity, alone, cold and empty. Trying to imagine the reality at the center of the great mystery, and determining within myself that I must come to solid, satisfactory conclusions about these things in order for my brain to feel less broken, caused what I would call “the great fold” where my brain has presumably doubled over inside my skull and has remained in fetal position since.

During a regular FaceTime with my parents, the sound waves of my dull musings must have rearranged themselves to say “help me” and a plane ticket was quickly arranged for my brother to retrieve me in LA and accompany me on the one-day’s drive to my family’s homestead in Colorado. In the meantime, one of my kindest friends presenced herself in my day-to-day to administer with pharmaceutical precision a prescription of socially distanced walk and talks, pumpkin carving, and at least one take-out meal enjoyed on the roof of my building where she and I both looked at the sky with teary eyes and asked for a little more light.

I packed, my brother arrived, and we drove.

__________________________

In the winter of 2016, you may have been tricked, like my family was, into paying full price for tickets to the Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt vehicle Passengers. The marketing was sleek and interesting. The two bank-rolliest stars! Romance! Space! A swimming pool! The movie was across the board awful and dealt with some unsettling existential hypotheticals (the earth becoming uninhabitable, dying a meager death without reaching the ‘destination’, being awoken from peaceful cryo-sleep and seeing Chris Pratt first).

Funnily, as I watched the film in theaters with my family I had that sudden panicky flash of realization that many of us have in our lives; the moment the brain registers its own mortality. I suddenly became aware, not for the first time, but it does always feel like the first time, that it would be me who would experience my death. I would die. I would cease to exist. My whole world, my vivid inner life, the deep cries and longings of my heart, would just go away. I would be finished. And what may be the most pervasive and dreadful fear I’ve ever experienced seeped into every muscle like poisonous lactic acid. Instead of blood, my heart pumped liquid dread and it went out from the center to everywhere.

This wasn’t helped, days later, when my family went to watch the movie Fences with tour-de-force performances from Viola Davis and Denzel Washington. A movie which features an entire sequence where Denzel performs an angsty anti-death monologue directly to camera; trying to fight death off with a bat.

The next day Carrie Fisher died.

Then two days later, her mother, Debbie Reynolds, died.

The dread lingered for weeks. Every day I awoke to fixate on death, question the afterlife, question my belief in a benevolent loving God. The concept of Heaven terrified me. The concept of not-existing terrified me. My body went in complete lockdown and I had no peace. I hated eating and could barely muster an appetite except when I’d be absolutely emaciated. I lost weight. I’d have fits of difficulty breathing, racing heart-rate, unwanted, uncontrollable thinking. The body responded to the the spiral thinking, and then, when I’d find myself helpfully distracted, the mind would register the lingering physiological anxiety and unwanted thoughts would return. Every moment felt unbearable.

My family tried desperately to help with prayer and comfort and distraction. Their encouragements about Heaven, the goodness of God or the longevity of the genetics in our family were noted and appreciated attempts to heal me. Now that I’m a bit older, I see how sending me back to LA after that holiday must have been a mini death-like grief for them. I had arrived to them well but left with a sickness they couldn’t nurse better; a parent’s nightmare realized.

I’m sure I made matters worse for them when, a few nights after returning to LA, my frequent panic attacks became so severe I was certain my heart would explode. So in the middle of the night on a Thursday, I made the drive a few streets over to the Burbank ER and sat in the waiting room of depressed people and crying babies. Everywhere I looked was a litany of extremely local human suffering. Ear infection toddler. Skinned knee teenager. Someone holding an eye. Suddenly my emergency of “feeling nervous” didn’t seem as urgent - but I remained. The doctors looked me over for heart issues, lung issues or lack of oxygen. They came to the anticlimax to which I’d realistically already arrived: panic attack. I explained I was in a bout of overthinking everything (at the time I was careful not to inform the ER nurses of my compulsive death ideation).

Perhaps the sound waves rearranged themselves here as well because I think the nurse attending me caught on. He sat on the bed next to me, kindly patted my shoulder and, in his thick Eastern European dialect, welcomed me to premier company. “You know, the smartest people in the word all had ridiculous anxiety because they wanted the answer to every question. They wanted to figure everything out.” He told me to drink some chamomile and take a bubble bath. I didn’t have a bathtub in my apartment.

Before I stood to leave, he finished his thought, “You need to decide if you want to be the smartest guy in the room, or the happiest.” Ah, happy or wise. With my brain still in the fetal I didn’t really think I’d have either ideal as an option. So, other than carrying some printouts on managing anxiety, I left as I arrived: breathing heavily and feeling unnecessary.

The next day, some friends from a previous job were celebrating a coworker’s promotion at a gay bar in West Hollywood and invited me to join. I’m not much of a partier, and had sworn myself off any behavior altering substances for the time being (caffeine, alcohol, reality TV) but I was eager to be around non-ER people. I joined. The bar was a renovated church, with crosses and stained-glass everywhere. Busts of the Holy Mother watched on as crowds of warm bodies rolled against each other with rich smiles and the smell of last night’s spilt vodka everywhere. I like to imagine myself at the center of that congealed mass, covered in so many winter layers, a wide-eyed fear stupor glued to my face. I don’t remember much about the night as I was still very much unable to wrangle the compulsive thinking and, I assume, long-term memory storage was taking an intermission. I do remember the scantily clad dancers on pedestals around the venue, my former coworkers so welcoming and eager to see me, the warmth (I was constantly cold) of our huddled dancing to happy, uplifting pop music.

After a few weeks, the clouds slowly lifted. While I’d still have lingering, uncomfortable thoughts towards the end of all things, or at least my experience of them, they didn’t debilitate me. Thoughts were thoughts. I’d go on. Life goes on.

Until, of course, it halts.

__________________________

My current stay in Colorado has begun to feel like a private, luxury mental institution. My care is overseen by three perfect niblings who are the heartbeat of the house. Most mornings, they burst into my room, remind me it’s morning, and demand pancakes from scratch. I’m well fed here, surrounded by love and prayer, music and games. We’ve ushered in a New Year, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, a few birthdays. There’s no lack of joyful things. And still, dread persists.

Exactly four years after my first swim in the dread pool of anxiety and depression, I’ve come around to the same questions. And with everything going on, I feel less propensity to make much sense of them, though my vocabulary has grown.

Currently, every thought, impulse and sensory process runs through a strange, visceral filter which tells me that the underlying nature of all things beyond my experience and perception is a sinister, cold reality. It’s work in me says the nature of the universe is not good, that the only concrete reality is death and our collective hurtle towards it is the pre-eminent meaning of our lives. What was it that ER nurse said about the premier company I was attempting to join?

For the last few months now, I’ve had the feeling I’ve walked into the wrong room “Oops, I’m meant to be in Conference Room B. My bad.” I’m overwhelmed with the desire to escape to the right one. Or, to mix metaphors: I have the feeling I’ve been standing in the dark, desperate for someone to come flick a light on, but starting to realize no one ever can. Nothing I’ve read, or anything anyone has said to me to help me feel better has satisfied these desires or answered my questions. It seems the poets I’ve sought out have only gotten better at describing the issue.

Still, I’ve found myself reciting authors I’ve admired and stolen from like little prayers. There is a comfort from CS Lewis’ assertion that if “I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” Or another conference room. Perhaps my instinct to leave this room, my longing to escape, is innate and intended? And if Lewis is to be believed, humility may hold an answer. It was my introspection, my self-examination which brought on my effort to inventory the universe. Lewis suggests humility is “not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” I’ve said my brain feels broken, so that remains. But perhaps once I have a handle on it I’ll approach a healthier portion of looking inward and avoid similar deep dives in the future.

Mostly, I find myself breathing out the first of Anne LaMott’s three essential prayers (Help, Thanks, Wow) constantly throughout the day. The sound waves of my many sighs and grunts rearrange themselves while I: make way to restroom, stir cup of tea, play iPhone puzzle game, rock sleepy baby nephew to sleep, and they say, “help me, please, God.”

Something has my brain convinced I’ve been left to define the nature of all things for all humanity myself, without God’s input. My brain has assumed its fetal-position throne and taken on the literal weight of the universe. My brain in tandem with our world events, has decided that the underlying nature of all things is sinister and the fate that awaits all of us is oblivion or worse; that, in the end, life just halts.

I recognize my quandary comes from a place of immense privilege. The elements of my already extremely comfortable life have not been pulled out from under me like so many suffering through our current environment, or the marginalizing environments that have existed long before any pandemic. No one in any proximity to my life has had to endure a severe Covid infection, and I’ve been blessed not to lose anyone to the disease. Similarly, my financial standing, my ability to be with family, my employment and, frankly, the majority of my hobbies have remained untouched. It’s not lost on me how anxiety and depression emerge into a paradox. And yet, for me right now, even every good thing about life is underlined with the thought of its expiration like the thick smell of putrid molasses lingering after a bad bake. I feel sick. I’m convinced the only thing that can really snap me out of it, or convince me otherwise, would be God coming down here Himself, to shake me into sense, and to show me I’m wrong.

So let me tell you what it looks like when God comes down here himself to show me I’m wrong.

• It looks like your friend making you vegetarian chili and cornbread, and sneakily watching you take bites to confirm you’re eating.

• It looks like that same friend checking your mail while you’re in Colorado and FaceTiming you to show you your bills.

• It looks like fish tacos to-go by the Malibu pier after a cold hike in the Santa Monica mountains with a brotherfromanothermother.

• It looks like an unprompted voicemail from another dear friend, reminding you God loves you and has placed you on her mind.

• It looks like your baby brother waiting at the outdoor baggage claim of the Burbank airport, after braving the risk of Covid to come gather you up and drive you to Colorado to get better.

• It looks like your parents actively reminding you nothing you choose in life could interfere with their love for you by saying just that, and often.

• It looks like your sleeping baby nephew, and the patterned craters your sweater leaves on his face after the 40 minute snuggle.

• And his sisters drawing you from sleep with a reminder that it’s morning, you’re alive, and it’s time for you to make pancakes.

• It looks like your brother-in-law stocking the pantry with your shared favorite snacks he never hoards for himself.

• It looks like your sister stocking your bathroom with spa-fixings and texts from upstairs confirming you have enough hot water to soak.

• It looks like weekly FaceTimes to watch The Masked Singer with one of your closest friends where you spend 2 hours prior talking about everything else first.

• It looks like Jim Gaffigan comedy specials and Jeopardy reruns which play in the background so you can passively drift to sleep each night.

• It looks like the poetry podcast you listen to on your long walk in the cold, where the host tells a story of a toddler asking him “what doing? what doing?” ad infinitum, only to hear, when he finally asks the toddler what she’s doing, “I asking.” A response that undoes you.

• It looks like Mary Karr’s poetry and the book Faith in the Shadows by Austin Fischer.

• It looks like Anthony Hopkins’ tweet about his 45 years of sobriety and his encouragement to keep going and be bold in the promise that mighty forces will come to your aid.

• It looks like the fourth season of Big Mouth.

• It looks like the contestants on the Great British Baking Show and Phil Rosenthal traveling the world simply to eat and be funny to people.

• It looks like Eugene Peterson books and the life he lived between writing them.

• It looks like a group of Container Store employees dancing under the light of a stained glass crucifix at a gay bar in West Hollywood, warming their cold and hurting friend.

• It looks like an Eastern European night nurse in the ER, and the calm way he honors your humanity while you are wasting his time.

I haven’t learned very much through this latest bout of despair except that trying to decide on solid conclusions on some things is the same as trying to be God, and that trying to be God is a form of self harm. I’ve learned saying “I’m alive” out loud first thing each morning is a good way to start each day by saying something true. I’ve learned, re-learned, and doubly confirmed that caffeine is the enemy of human peace, and yet, we need a little bit to stay alive. I make a daily futile attempt to find the perfect dosage. I have learned from these winter nights that darkness is not the same as sinister and that I don’t need to fear it.

I have less answers than I’ve ever had, and even more questions. But, I asking.

I have decided to ignore my fear that the nature of everything is awful. There is something in my gut that tells me that the nature of the universe is immense and infinite, overwhelming and unfathomable, which of course can be scary. But it also tells me that He has a name and face which is turned toward us in love.

__________________________

While writing this, I took a break to join my family for a dinner of Chinese take out. I forced down a cream-cheese rangoon, some broccoli, a few bites of beef, and tepid sips of room temperature water (the appetite v. anxiety battle rages). Odd as it is, I did feel the warmth of an infinite loving gaze when I read my fortune cookie’s wisdom:

Enjoy your life! It is better to be happy than wise.

Alright, alright. I’ll try.