Intimidated by the Possibilities

a reflection on when free time wasn’t nearly as burdensome

Sarah Thompson
Jul 23, 2017 · 5 min read

It’s been about eight years since I enjoyed time off in any kind of uncomplicated way. Inevitably, my memory of myself at sixteen is affected by my envy, but I remember her as pure. She flowed through her days the same way that she wrote: with naïvety, sure, but also with an astonishing clarity and depth. She wrote and sang her own songs in the wee hours of the morning, was obnoxious with her affections, and danced Lindy Hop with wild abandon (that was sometimes legitimately unsafe). Her life was full to bursting with a rich inner life, passionate friendships, and a hyperbolic yearning for a boy with a baby blue VW Rabbit. But she didn’t have a fucking job.

I sometimes wonder if that’s what it would take — unemployment — to once again cultivate a virtually endless stream of meaningful engagement with the experience of being alive. The feeling of “searching for something” has become irritating, like a piece of plant matter in a pair of tight jeans. I’m sure Late Capitalism™ is at least somewhat to blame. Productivity anxiety certainly lives in me, and lives well, growing fat on my constant struggle to create, connect, survive. I am wise enough to know that there is never one thing at a time that will absolve me of my low-key-but-constant-panic, but I am not yet wise enough to know how to reroute my energies.
What this looks like: on my days off, I awake with a sense of dread that I imagine is familiar to thalassophobics (that’s “people with a phobia of the sea or sea travel” for those of you who didn’t Google that just right now). The possibilities for the day scream through my head, painted garishly with promises of being “authentic” or “grounding” and thus arises the same nausea I feel when I see pictures of avocado toast or motivational quotes (or other highly coded symbols of wellness) on Instagram. There is real, fulfilling experience, and there are wild lunges toward it that masquerade as the thing itself.

A favourite fun (and thus, “fulfilling”) memory is the time I holed up in my living room, shirtless, huddled in a nest of blankets, with a huge pitcher of water (?), and played through the entirety of Assassin’s Creed II. I smelled like shit. I didn’t check my phone. And even though this whole micro-season of my young life reeked (ha) of escapism, of “laziness”, I relished it. I was, of course, sixteen (because my sixteen year-old self was just killing it and it’s all downhill from there, apparently), and to this day I reference that period as an all-time high. I have tried to replicate such a time, to no avail. I was drinking a pitcher of water as my refreshments, for god’s sake. And with no small cute bowls of snacks. How hard could that be to top?
My attempts since then (with Stardew Valley, Legend of Zelda: OoT, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout, etc.) have been cozy, but ultimately felt hollow. I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that I ought to be jogging, or checking email.com, or sipping a pristine latté and annotating Foucault. My “fuck you” to productivity anxiety was weakly muttered and immediately retracted.

The root of these negotiations seems to be how we understand self-worth, and the struggle to derive that sense of worth from “being” instead of “doing” (thank you, Mom, for the terminology). And despite my general struggle with this, I have had plenty of moments during which I wouldn’t have rathered be anywhere else. Some of those moments are surprising, too, like the time I had a terrible, illuminating fight with my ex on our vacation, or when I got so high in Seattle that I fainted in the street. Certain moments feel integral to the story of my person, and the idea of being anywhere else feels like skipping through essential plot points. I want to be there for the things that matter, even if they’re hard. Plus, had I not greened out so badly, how would I have learned I’m the type of person to flirt, covered in blood and with broken front teeth, with the nurse who did the ECG?

So I guess the challenge, and what sixteen year-old Sarah was good at (goddamn her with her incense and her cute lip piercing) is being patient and content with the moments that come in between. Knowing fully that those major plot points are guaranteed and that they will affect you, maybe change you. Savouring the in-between moments allows us to take stock of who we are and what we have between those episodes of transformation. To see the progress we’ve made. To enjoy that knowledge. Certainly I have anxiety issues, certainly I’m eager to write, produce, and star in a ground-breaking one woman show, certainly I feel overwhelmed by the long, long list of things I want (and know I have the capacity) to do. But I believe patience is key, along with honesty with oneself. Today, do I want to go to the café to work on my screenplay about visiting the Cayman Islands, or do I maybe temporarily hate people and writing and want to stay under the covers for nine hours, masturbating to (the later) Harry Potter films and eating only shortbread? Do I want to touch base with an acquaintance over fruity alcoholic drinks before noon, or do I want to work out, and then sit in the steam room and think about death?
Plus, we’re never fully off-the-clock when it comes to our propensities and projects. Often our goals, our skills, our creative pursuits, exist in this big, messy, intermingling web. We are constantly cross-training. Maybe while cleaning the kitchen, I start to dance a little bit to 90s hits. Maybe I shake my hips in some funny little way that sparks an idea for a clown turn. Boom. Welcome to Broadway.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, and if I did, I would sell them at a very high price because Vancouver is expensive and they’d eventually get pirated anyway. But I do know that, lately, I have been especially interested in process-based practices. It takes a lot of curiosity, flexibility, and energy to be aware of every step (and to enjoy them, if possible), rather than grinding through until you can finally check that little box. How much more pleasurable would the whole thing be if you could feel the value in every step rather than just in the box-checking? And, to scale this principle, is “the whole thing” an art installation, a wood-working project, or your entire human life?

I’m sure if I could sit across from sixteen year-old Sarah, we’d smirk at each other. There would be a tension. “I’m jealous of your boobs,” she’d say, and that would make me chuckle and feel good. “I’m trying not to want to be thin,” I’d reply. She would nod, her slight second chin having yet to appear. “That’s hard.” She’d eagerly ask me how things went with the boy with the blue car, and I would hug her as I told her he’s married, now, but that she’ll be happy both for and without him. I’d ask her to remind me how to make collages, because I need to make an album cover for my podcast. “What the fuck is a podcast?” she’d say.
If I showed her this piece of writing, I think she’d be both flattered and annoyed before telling me to relax and remember, to have fun and trust that we are always doing the work of processing, growing, and transforming. I’d smile at how much we both sound like my Mom.

Sarah Thompson

Written by

writer (duh), anthropology student, clown.

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