Finding hope at a wedding

It wouldn’t really be travelling if I wasn’t exhausted beyond comprehension and intoxicated beyond human capacity. I land in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a wedding at around 11 a.m. and I do not get my room until 3 p.m. So I decide to take a stroll with my bags in hand only to realize that Albuquerque is impossible to walk in and getting to the nearest Waffle House would take me over thirty minutes on foot. So I wait for the bus, which is free, and ride for five minutes only to realize I passed the Waffle House and get off a few stops ahead thinking “I’ll catch a bus back”. The bus back was delayed five, then ten, then twenty minutes, and finally it never arrived. So I walked thirty minutes in the opposite direction, luggage in hand, in the desert heat, to get to the Waffle House because at this point I had spent over 1.5 hours in this endeavor that should have taken five minutes on the bus, and I was too stubborn to let go of the Waffle House.

I finally get in, take off my sweater that I still had on for some reason, and ask for a booth and the girl goes “booths are for two or more people only” even though the place was empty. But I won’t argue, she just works there, and I take a chair right in front of the servers and cooks and the whole Waffle House squad. I swear to god I’m so awkward in these situations because I sat there in hopes to make conversation with someone to make the time pass until I got my room and I was able to sleep. I get a beef hash brown bowl and about five coffee refills and 6 water refills in my first hour there and somewhere in between I ask “how were the balloons this year”? And the small talk begins, and the girl seems kinda hesitant, and I think that they think I’m a total weirdo, and I think “you don’t really have to talk to me that’s okay”, but as I sit there longer the small talk turns into big talk.

She’s small and white and has a cartoonish sort of accent to her, says she’s from Tennessee, then moved to Louisiana, and finally Albuquerque, because it was calling to her, and she always heard “the west is best!”. One of the best things about Los Angeles is that no matter how shitty it can be you can say you live in it. And this gets us going on life and the pursuit of happiness, when she tells me “If I could’ve done whatever I wanted I would have pursued something creative, like photography”. Neither before nor after this statement did I mention that it was also what I pursued.

Here in Albuquerque I have a few friends and I really wanted to see my old buddy Julian. We worked in news together, and he’s an excellent reporter, great behind the camera and in front. I recently came to find out that he anchored one of the morning shows for the first time, which I think is a very big deal. I hit him up over text, and we try to make it work, but my stay is too short and his schedule too busy, I congratulated him on anchoring, and he said he liked it but was actually trying to get out of news and find something that gave him more time to “do things like these”. Total shocker to me, as I was under the impression that this was Julian’s calling and he’d do it for a greater part of his life. News can be extremely consuming, which was one of the reasons I decided to leave, but that’s very in style for me, I couldn’t believe we were losing one of our best people here!

It’s 3 p.m. I take a nap at the Motel 6, which reeks of cigarette smoke, my roommate arrives, and we go out that night for drinks, I black out. Wake up, get breakfast, get dressed, take a $2.98 Uber to the Applebee’s, four drinks in, and we’re off to the wedding. One of my best friends, beautiful wedding, beautiful guests, a dashing groom, and we’re talking and eating and drinking, and I come to find out that the groom is still working at their same old job, which last I heard over a year ago was making them terribly unhappy, but I wasn’t nosy about it and didn’t ask or make any comments, but it left me thinking. And I wake up, and I’m drunk, and I ride the plane back home.

Either the following day or the day after that my roommate brings me the news that he is unsatisfied with LA and his work here, and he has much better opportunities back in New Mexico, so he’s thinking of moving back. He’s talked to me many times about how awful the industry can be and how there is no room for growth. And it makes me realize that I also am deeply unfulfilled by my job, and it feels a bit hopeless to try something else or make moves elsewhere. But so many people feel this way, hopeless and unfulfilled, and it's not just any people but it's a Gen z problem, I believe. Mental health, and the housing crisis and not being able to afford what generations before us easily could. And I’m sure I’m not highlighting anything particularly new or interesting but in all seriousness what the hell am I and so many others supposed to do, when we’re unsatisfied and look for new meaning in new cities and new jobs but nothing seems to make sense.

Well I'm glad you asked because I actually do have a modest proposal.

Let’s stop focusing on the negative things entirely, and I don’t just mean the bad jobs, bad rent, bad grocery prices, but anything and everything negative is gone. And a really easy way to achieve this is to completely change up the vocabulary that we use and the way that we describe certain things.

Instead of saying words like bad, let’s say good. Instead of sad, we are now happy, and instead of ugly, we are pretty. The housing crisis is now a housing boom, and grocery prices are no longer high, but low. It is all really in the perspective and if you repeat these things to yourself over and over again they eventually manifest into a reality. The economy is flourishing, the weather bright and sunny. Hurricanes are a gift from God to remind us of His almighty presence, and he doesn’t do it to punish us but to reinstate our belief in Him. Again, perspective, perspective, perspective. My job isn’t soulless and all consuming but cheerful and productive.

Seeing as we are so close to the election of a new president, it is only fair to apply these new rules when talking about the future of our country, and I believe important. People like to say the country is divided but I think it’s more united than ever, and no matter who wins, the future of the Greatest Country in the World seems, per usual, bright, hopeful and on track to free us from these shackles and create a better future for generations to come.