A photo of me on my 32nd birthday. Look at that optimism!
BY: JASON RAYNER
It’s October and I’ve been 32 for ten months. I’ve wanted to write a piece about what this means for a while. Probably closer to when I had been 32 for six months. There have been multiple drafts, of course. Drafts that worked structurally and probably would get the point across to readers but felt insincere and contrived. There were other drafts that resembled the old LiveJournal I kept when I was 18 (I just did a search and my old screen name “emo_kidd1001” appears to have sadly, been deleted), and those felt equally insincere, and ridiculously enough, too cool. The actual point of this post isn’t to make something that is easy and cool, it’s to be honest. Go figure, being honest is exactly what scares me.
On December 21 I turned 32 and I told anyone who would listen that this would be my year. And I believed it. I believed it like I believed it basically every year since I was 26. And just like the other years, I began to make plans about how to finally achieve my goals. It essentially takes some positive affirmations and a notebook, and magically, my motivation should transpire. Nevermind the fact that I wake up every morning with a pang of dread because I realize that I either have to be somewhere I don’t want to be, or that I’ve given myself a list of roughly 10, 068 things that I need to get done in order to feel accomplished and successful.
In reality I want one more hypothetical day. On this day I’ll sleep late and I won’t feel bad about it. I’ll move to my couch and I’ll watch all of the shows everyone on the internet seems to have time to watch and tells me are essential TV. Then I’ll re-watch all of my favourite movies so I can spend my days on Twitter finding perfect gifs, while also watching every movie that might be nominated for an Oscar. I’ll go to the movies and not worry about trying to go on a Tuesday when it’s cheaper and I’ll drink LaCroix all day because those are two things that are innocently excessive. Little indulgences that make me feel like I’m at least somewhat successful. Then I’ll get to my huge to-do list. I’ll still accomplish a good chunk of things before I’m 33.
Then suddenly, last summer, my dad passed away and my whole life imploded. There’s never a good time, there’s never a way to truly prepare, but in a few short hours, I had almost everything taken away. I’m an only child, I’m single, and now it’s only me and my mom. There’s a lot of loneliness in that. I’m still waiting to process the shock of everything, and my overall motivation has essentially disappeared. All I want to do is not be sad and devastated. I have a hard time caring about anything.
The thing is, I want to be a person who cares. I don’t want to have to really deal with the person I am, the one who is wandering through life sad and dazed. I don’t want to be the guy who brings others down. I don’t even want to talk about it, even though I know I should. But that’s because I don’t know how to talk about it. I often refer to it as “what happened to my dad” when speaking to friends; a shorthand that allows me to avoid words like “dead”, “died”, “death”. I use the word “memorial” instead of “funeral” because I think it will take away some of the sting. I craft two identities. One identity is more private. He’s untethered, he’s broken, he’s lost. I keep that identity private for the most part, and even though I know there are a lot of people who are willing to spend time with him, I’m the one who feels the most uncomfortable with this identity. So I craft another identity. He’s the one that I bring to work, who lives a life that hasn’t gone through this. And sometimes, more often than not, both identities bleed together, and I smile a lot, trying to cover up the sadness I feel. Sometimes, because I just don’t want my sadness to take over whatever joy I can grab on to, but also because I don’t want to bring down the mood. People are uncomfortable with sadness. I’m uncomfortable with sadness. When I spend more time in the second identity - and I try my best to stay there often - I feel an overwhelming guilt that I’m not feeling enough, when really I just don’t think I’m strong enough to actually let myself properly process my grief.
As much as I don’t want to admit it, it fundamentally changes the way I view everything. I used to wake up every morning to go to the gym. It’s something I have to re-learn. I used to use guilt as a motivator for going. If I wasn’t an atheist I would be an amazing Catholic because guilt has proven to be a key motivator in my life. I used to only go to the gym because I wanted to be skinny, despite the fact that I don’t have the kind of body that could ever be skinny. Now I want to go to the gym because I don’t want to die young and I’m scared that I’ll run out of time to prevent whatever destructions I’ve already inflicted on my body.
I still have that to-do list, and as I float through the year, it only gets bigger. I’ve spent my entire adult life saying I wanted to make movies. And I do. I want to direct. And write. And act. Without even knowing it, I quit acting. It was unintentional. It was just something that slipped through my fingers. That happens a lot when making films. Dates get pushed back, people over commit, and projects get abandoned. Every time something gets pushed back, I feel a little twinge of relief. Because that means I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to risk anything. I can hide behind my disappointment. Then I get scared that people will think I’m a fraud. That I’m delusional. That I’m all talk and can’t deliver. I am so used to this cycle, that it almost feels comforting.
But I know I have some drive in me somewhere. Because I always have and always will be in love with art to an obsessive degree. Sometimes I get so passionate about a piece of work that I feel like my insides will burst. It makes me worry that I feel too much, as if feelings are a finite thing and suddenly I’ll hit my quota and no longer be able to feel again. But it’s something that has never gone away. If anything it has only intensified with age. Just before I turned 32, I saw Call Me By Your Name for the first time, and I felt things I’ve never felt before not just about film but about my own life. A month later, I read A Little Life and couldn’t believe that these two very special things could exist in the world at the same time. I listen to either Years & Years record on repeat and even when I feel as numb, somehow they break through, and I don’t remember loving any music as much as I love theirs, and even writing this paragraph makes me emotional.
I’m 32, and every day I fear that I’ve built a life I don’t want. It’s the type of fear that leaves me paralyzed when I wake up and makes me want to go back to bed. It’s the kind of fear that makes me retreat, that when I deal with head on, my natural instinct is to turn run to Twitter to read about other people who are doing the work I wish I was doing, or to obsessively google how old celebrities are, hoping that there is a way I can catch up to them (and yes, I realize I can’t freeze time, so you win this one, Timothée Chalamet).
I vaguely know what I want, but I also know what I don’t want. I know that I don’t want to be stuck in a job where I’m constantly demeaned for some extra income, and this year I was able to walk away from a situation like that and move on to something much healthier. I know that I don’t want to take for granted the relationships I have in my life because one of the only things that has constantly provided me with fuel this year are the friends that have been there for me with an unwavering, unconditional support. I know that I don’t want to be defeated. I know that I don’t want to feel like I haven’t made some kind of mark, that I haven’t at least offered what I could. I know I don’t want to be tired anymore. I know I don’t want to be obsessed with obsessing over the pressure I constantly feel to be successful.
I feel messy and I feel broken and I feel spectacular. I’m sensitive and I cry at everything, good, and bad. I’m going to continue having false starts and barely keep it together. My different identities will probably end up merging. My priorities will shift. I am definitely going to fuck up more than I’d like. This has not been my year, in fact, it has probably been the worst year I’ve ever had, while simultaneously giving me some of the best experiences of my life. I don’t have a cute, positive affirmation to end this with, and that’s the point.