I Just Care

I took like zero pictures this week sorry.

Woof. Last entry is kind of hard to follow up, it just flowed from me. This one will probably end up a throw away.* (By the way the footnotes are pretty heavy in this one so feel free to just skip them all. Or skip the whole thing. See if I care.)

Blogging every week is a tough commitment because I feel like I should speak when I have something to say, and only rarely do I feel like I have something to say to the whole internet. That’s okay though, I don’t think most male writers at this stage of novice would have given that idea a second thought. JK kidding JK kidding!** I’m just an anxious person. I’m anxious about silly things because subconsciously I have this need to be better than everyone else—call it a survival instinct—and part of being better is getting everyone to like you, because being well-liked is a sign of value and without everyone liking you how could you possibly ever be perfect?

I think I’ve wronged every person in my life at least once. I forget about people too easily. I forget birthdays, I forget favorite things, parents’ names.*** I can’t really read emotions the best so I won’t realize if I annoyed someone until later. I’m not super self-aware even though I would consider myself observant.

I distract myself too much I think. I’m in a world that makes me so anxious I plug myself in to music, movies, TV, social media. I don’t have time to just think things through. When I write I have time. Like I’ve been slowly realizing while writing this that I shouldn’t have cooked dinner tonight because my roommate was having a friend over. But I didn’t see her text until I thought about it more just now and checked my messages. Sorry! I would have been a bit annoyed if it was me.****

I need to think about real people more. I need time thoughtful and kind. It takes time. I have lots of time still in the grand scheme of things. I can afford to not think about just myself outside of work more. I spend so much time thinking about my coworkers (students) and other people who don’t really care about me, I may have commodified sympathy and empathy. My empathetic capacity (constrained only by time) gets wasted on people who will leave or who I may never see again. Truth is, my capacity is just low because I am scarce-ifying my time, wasting it now distracting myself from caring about others. Distracting from others who don’t care about me as much. Problem with that is then I can’t think about the people who do care about me or people who it doesn’t matter if they even know my name because I should care about them.

Sorry again to my roommate. I don’t think she really cares, but I want her to know that I care.

I should apologize more in general, but I worry I’m just overthinking most of the time. (I’m actually underthinking.) I wish I could trust that real people will be kinder and more forgiving. I need to be kinder and more forgiving.

I need some David Foster Wallace to calm me down after all that. UGH! Maybe reading IS a vice! Well… distractions are all vices aren’t they?

Authors (good ones) at least tend to have something important to say, don’t they?

Good authors don’t publish every week. Do they?

Footnotes

*It is important to know, maybe, that these posts are adaptations of my journal entries. I just polish them up a little. The sequencing of the writing is organic and raw, except for endnotes like this.

**I’m not kidding. There are too many awful podcasts for men to care about that. I think men should need permission from women before they can start a podcast. #menspodcastcontrol. Some might say blah equal opportunity not equal outcome but actually I believe in neither. Life isn’t fair, but it’s more unfair to women. Some haters may say “well Hallel you know blogging is the new podcasting” but it’s not and I don’t expect anyone to care about this writing.

***Maybe I’ll be cursed to never forget someone I want to. No. No, that’s not really a curse is it.

Also, I’m using footnotes super excessively because I started listening to Infinite Jest on my I5-N slog of a commute and Michelle Zauner wrote about the genius of the footnotes so now I can’t stop using footnotes.

Also over using footnotes like this is super funny actually and I should try stand-up actually.

****I need to start giving people the benefit of doubt that they actually don’t care. I just care, even when I shouldn’t.

Sad.

Additional Thoughts

(What follows is written a day after the first section.)

I’m writing from the comfort of my home but I’ve just been involved in a car accident.

I feel like life is too short to not love to the fullest of your capability. I’m consuming media of the finest kind: recommendations from friends, interviews of authors I admire, and long texts from my mother. In an hour, I’ll be driving over to the repair shop where I’ll leave behind my precious car and face the tragic possibility that I never see her again. My poor car! How could I ever part with her sound system and heated seats? I love the moon roof and the spare on the back. I will be absolutely devastated if she is totaled.

I’ve started to read a new book called Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the author of Braiding Sweetgrass, which I enjoyed so much I sometimes consider asking for it back from someone I lent it to even though we don’t speak anymore. Serviceberry is about gift economies, gratitude, and intrinsic value. I am reflecting on the value of my car and how the estimate at the repair shop can never measure up to the memories and emotional attachment I've developed in the past almost-year.

There is a non-zero chance that she will be lost and that I’ll have to undertake, once again, the complex and exhausting task of finding a new car, and whatever new car I secure will never be the same as this perfect one, with her glitching CD-player and charming tan leather interior. The new car won’t trust me, and I won’t trust it. I may never trust it.

There’s also a chance that the damages are just barely minor enough to warrant a repair, and that I will be reunited with my beautiful 2011 RAV 4 just in time to enjoy a lovely Seattle spring. If it would guarantee our reunion, I would promise to change the oil at 3,000 miles, get a car wash every month, and to brake for yellow lights even when I’m late. But nothing I say will change the fact that my front end is concave. (You can laugh. Please laugh.)

My car may be broken beyond repair as qualified by insurance, but if I could fix her with my bare hands I would. If I had the time to develop mechanical expertise before I have to work on Monday, I would spare no expense. She is the best car I’ve ever had. I chose her, and I learned to love her not just despite her flaws but because of them (i.e. the time a broken audio connection made me rediscover the under-appreciated world of radio programming). I don’t think I could love any other car the same. I do think if I have to get a new car I’ll eventually learn to love it too, but it will be different. This one will always have a special place in my heart, because she’s not just a car, she’s my car.