I Don’t Know What’s Happening, and That’s Fine

In the past few weeks, my life turned into a firestorm. Changes at my workplace are ruining everything. My projects are moving along in unexpected ways. I decided to look at apartments for the sake of it one day, and I found a miracle of a listing which I am now buying. And my personal life is changing again and again in unexpected ways.

I have no idea what I’m doing. I also have no idea what’s happening. All I did was talk to people here and there throughout this past year. It’s beautiful, really, how everything took place. “I’m looking for a place to live” became me getting my first place to live. “I’m looking for an apartment” became me getting my first apartment (by literally speaking the words at the right moment in an ice cream shop). “I really want to start a gallery” became my current project of starting a gallery. A few weeks ago, I told someone, “Wouldn’t something like this be cool?” He agreed, and I told someone else. That other person then put me in contact with a number of amazing people I will now be meeting with to hopefully get my first dream off the ground.

It’s certainly not easy, though. Communicating with so many people while drowning in a sea of paperwork and tax calculations. Disrupting my life as well as others’. But it feels very productive which is nice. I can imagine the end result: Me quitting this soul-draining job, opening a physical art gallery, publishing my third book, moving into a beautiful top-floor apartment with a view of the ocean. Peace and comfort. It’s not all so nice, however. There is a cost to putting myself and my life first, such as how my good friend and roommate is now in a rough position as a result of me moving.

I have another friend I’ve grown unexpectedly close with. I’ve also returned to meeting another friend regularly which we had stopped for some time prior. And I’m building yet new relationships with new people, something I find very fulfilling and rewarding. More groups. More consistency. How did any of this happen? One person reached out here. I reached out to someone there. Another person reached out in this way. Someone else in that way. And here we are: me, right now.

I saw this new apartment listing on the 21st of January. Its open house was on the 25th. I bid immediately afterwards. It was accepted on the 26th. Then we immediately agreed on the purchase details. Now I’m waiting for the financing which may take a month, but in a mere five days, I went from having literally no thoughts about moving to now buying an apartment. Just like how a mere, “What if?” is becoming reality: it simply happened. Like magic.

My workplace is rather disappointing, however. It was never my first choice, but it’s starting to decline rapidly. The work I do for the creative team is fine. But when I’m with other staff members, enjoying our shift, having fun and talking, the regular supervisor tells us to stop: “It’s not a good look for the people,” she says. So, rather than people walking around seeing joyous, happy staff members talking and having fun together, they now get to walk around and see sulking, depressed, miserable, isolated creatures who would much rather be at home. Yes, I dramatize, but I could write a book about what takes place at this workplace — maybe I will one day when I’m gone. I’ve seen both the best and the worst of humanity here. Everyone has quit, is quitting, or will quit. Or cutting their hours drastically (like me). Will I ever find an enjoyable job in this country? It really doesn’t seem like it. Though that is exactly why I’m creating my own opportunities.

If my writing is scattered, that is a representation of my mind right now: scattered. As I said, I have no idea what’s happening. And that’s perfectly fine, because I’m simply going along with the ride of a lifetime. The beauty being that if nothing works out, it truly doesn’t matter. I’ve established a home, and I’m not talking about my physical apartment; I mean that I have turned this city into my home, and I now have a place here. No matter what happens, nothing can devastate me because of that. I have friends, people I would dare call family. I have community. I have anything and everything I could want or need here. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for everyone.

There’s no real point to anything I’m saying. Go out and live your life. Share you ideas, plant your seeds, see what happens. Don’t ever become complacent. I slowly learned what kind of life I wanted for myself. I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I created it. The end. You can do the same. You might not feel capable, you might not be capable — right now — but it’s a learned skill. Try, fail, try again, and succeed. That is the process. Things still go wrong; they have for me, even quite recently. But that’s perfectly fine. What matters is doing anything at all. Whether things are good or bad at this moment, the best is always yet to come.