Band Kid: I Practiced For Hours Last Night.

In highschool I wrote a story about a middle-generation of stellar travelers. Their parents were born on earth and left as children, and the middle generation will not live long enough to see their destination. They live their entire lives on the ship and I wrote about them trying to find their place in everything. They will never know blue skies and warm beaches and open fields with warm breezes. They’ll never know birdsong or crickets or frogs. They’ll never hear the rain on the roof of a dreary day. I never could find the right way to end the story. I wanted it to be a happy ending, but I didn’t know how to do it.

I realize now that it was a book about me dealing with depression before I even knew it. Looking back at how blatant the projecting was, it’s obvious now. It wasn’t then.

In the story, the middle-generation people are lost. They’re apathetic. They’re just a placeholder. The only job they have is to keep the ship running, have kids, and die. As the middle generation of people began becoming adults, suicide rates were skyrocketing. Crime and drug rates were jumping. This generation was completely apathetic because they felt that they had no use.

In the story, a small group of people in the middle-generation create the Weather Project. They turn the ship into a terrarium. They make magnificent gardens and take the DNA of animals they took with them and recreate them and they make this cold, metal spaceship that they have to live their entire lives on into a home. They take what little they have and they break it and rearrange it into something beautiful. They take this radical idea and turn the ship into a wonderful jungle of trees and birds and sunshine.

And I realize now how much it reflects my state of mind as I transitioned from a child into an adult while dealing with depression. You always hear “it gets better” and “when you’re older things will be easier” and I was so sick of waiting for it to get better. I was in the middle-generation stage. And I was sick of it. I was so sick of waiting.

When I was in highschool I didn’t know how to end the story. I didn’t know how to have a happy ending. I didn’t have the life experience then to finish the story in a meaningful way. I didn’t know how to make it better for these middle-generation characters.

But now that I’m older, I’m learning. That if you sit and wait for things to get better, it never will. You have to take your life and break it apart and rearrange it into something beautiful. You have to make the cold metal ship into the garden that you deserve. You have to make your own meaning. You have to plant your own garden.

You have to teach yourself that being happy is not a radical idea.

I have an important story

I was walking out of the gym on campus and over to my bike to unlock it, and looked up just in time to see a goose attack a woman as she walked past. I’m talking grabbing at her jacket, flapping its wings, biting and honking. I’m no stranger to our aggressive campus geese but hot diggity damn. Then. Then the goose turned and looked at me and let out a horrifying honk and suddenly, it was like bullet time, suddenly this massive goose was flying towards me.

So I squared up.

I tried to protect my expensive headphones.

And I braced for Goose.

When that thing flew at me I kicked higher and harder than I ever have and landed a solid blow to its huge, boat like body. It was so much harder and heavier than I expected. No one expects to kick a goose. It let out this awful squeaky toy noise, tried to grab at my hat, and then flew up and landed on the roof of the gym, watching me. I couldn’t turn my back for fear it would attack.

The worst part? There was no one around. No one saw me kick this deranged goose.

For five minutes I stood there, terrified of this goose.

And then people started walking out of the gym.

“I saw you kick that goose.”

“Man, that was a mean goose.”

“Nice kick on the goose.”

Eventually it took off and I was able to resume my day but not after solidifying my identity as The One Who Kicked The Goose.

ugly men are like, girls just want sexy confident chads who treat them like shit, when instead they should be with a stinky virgin with no social confidence like me who will also treat you like shit