Reset
A while back, almost seven or eight years ago now, I reset.
This wasn’t the first time it happened. I can say that I’ve reset maybe three or four times in my life, and it always happens the same way. I understand that it’s happening, and as I’ve gotten older I’ve taken to using it as a bookmark. Things are changing, and I have to help them change.
That time, it was at my afternoon job at AMC Atlanta Phipps Plaza. My son was a tiny little 2 or 3 year old, and I wouldn’t know for sure he was autistic until the end of his third year. I’d been fired unceremoniously from Whole Foods a couple of months before, to my dismay (and the day after I tanked my sudden financial stability by spending a bunch of money on Christmas gifts for my co-workers because I always do idiotic shit like that).
I worked at AMC and Michael’s at the same time, but we’ll talk about Michael’s another day.
This was super close to my near homeless days, so I didn’t have a car. I had to travel to work on the bus and train, and I typically worked Michael’s overnight after the train stopped running. So I’d leave for AMC earlier in the day, maybe getting there around noon, work my shift, and then leave straight from there to make it to Michael’s. My shift at Michael’s didn’t start until 3 am, and the bus stopped running at 12 am, so I would have to sit outside the store in a parking lot lit up by the city for three hours. I listened to music and closed my eyes and leaned my head on the building and, most of the time, didn’t really care if anything happened to me.
So that’s the setup for this semi-blog. Mid 20’s, overworked to the point of sleepless exhaustion, unloading trucks and sitting outside after midnight listening to music. Writing in notebooks on trains that I’d fall asleep on, waking up at the last stop, cursing myself heavily.
There was this deep hopelessness that used to sink into me at various times throughout the day. I unloaded trucks for Michael’s, and at least twice a night I found myself stuffing fake flowers into labeled containers and wondering when I would just die. I’d set up Halloween displays and wish they would fall over and mangle me. I’d imagine shutting the store down and living my life out on the ribbon aisle, tying myself up in bows and sleeping forever. It was an interesting time, and the thoughts would get worse and worse, so heavy I could barely lift my feet.
And then I would reset.
There would be these magical moments while I was trying to rush and clean a theater in-between movies (by the way, clean up after yourself. Most theater attendants are given FIVE MINUTES to clean up a theater after a movie, and I’ve seen many a breakdown because of the absolute impossibility of it). I’d clean, very used to stress and anguish and rushing, and calm would wash over me.
This Lana Del Rey song would come on at the end of one of the movies. I really can’t remember what it was, but I absolutely hated it. It came on one night after a particularly bad shift, and I just remember looking up at the giant screen and crying. It was a movie-esque cry. I stood with my broom and dustpan, standing in my theater attendant uniform, my hair in a low cut fade, and suddenly there were tears bubbling over my bottom lids and sliding down my face. I just stood there and watched the credits slowly sliding over the screen, engulfed in the lights from the lettering and not much else. Dark. Small and pathetic, with my sister and my son waiting for me at home. Responsible at all times, with nothing but responsibility to look forward to, and then all of a sudden that wasn’t who I was anymore. I stood there for a long time, took a deep breath, wiped my eyes, and cleaned the theater.
I have moments like this.
Another time, sitting outside at 3 am at Michael’s, I watched a homeless man walk up to me. He sat next to me, rambling to himself, and I nodded to him. He shrugged and started going through my bag. I let him. He pulled a book out of it, Youth in Revolt by C.D Payne, and I told him about it. He sat with me a long time, listening to me describe this book, and then finally got up and walked away. Wordless. And again, I found myself crying without even feeling the need to. I cried until I sat there shivering with sobs, and then I turned on my music and was fine. I felt like someone new.
There have been times when there felt like there was no escape. Like I was being completely emptied and reprogrammed by life, like I’d reached some sort of wall, and the feeling of being alive really hits me in those times. There’s something about somber lights and sounds, maybe just being alone to my thoughts in flickering darkness. It’s hard to explain.
I’ve done a lot of living, as it goes, and I haven’t reset in a while. It’s not the same as being sad or any other type of crying. It’s a literal emptying, and then I’m someone new. And today I woke up, stared up at my big windows, and realized I was crying. I’d taken a long nap on this uncomfortable couch, waking to a single stream of darkening sky and complete silence.
Reset.
So I guess there’s something new on the way. I guess there’s something else, someone else, here in Chicago. A chapter has turned somehow, and I can’t really figure out when it turned, but maybe it’s right when those random tears come. Somehow out of nowhere, somehow always when I’m engulfed in darkness with the slightest hint of light. Somehow always when I can’t think of the words to say and there’s no one around to say them to.
What does your reset button look like? And do you allow yourself to shed whatever shell you have, whatever build-up life has given you, and forgive whatever you’ve done?
I hope you’re wonderful, and I hope you give yourself as many chances as you need.
