I Have No Family Support
Entry 7
“Home is where people notice your absence”
I met again briefly with the dog park guy, and as you do with people you only vaguely know, I relied on my collection of generic observations and imparted with him the comment that I hadn’t seen him in a while. Turns out there was a very interesting reason for not seeing him. He informed me that he had bought a sizeable chunk of land about an hour north of Seattle and was devoting whatever time and energy he had to transforming the land into his ultimate passion project. He told me he was slowly building his own community based around organic farming and environmental sustainability. The conversation didn’t last much longer than that, but what he said left me really inspired.
We had talked earlier about the gut microbiome and how we don’t understand how the food we eat really affects us. How the sharp uptick in depression and mental illness could have a lot to do with what microscopic atrocities our bodies consume. It’s a radical concept that I honestly haven’t seen the research on, assuming there even is any given how recent our awareness of microbiome is. But speculative science aside, I found it fantastic how committed he was to founding a community around a set of core values.
I’ve had a lot of free time to think about community and home and family. About what it means to be a part of something bigger than yourself, and how I had relented to never finding the answer first-hand. However, this train of thought left me reflecting a lot on my time in college. Unlike most university studnets, I spent most of those years living in an independently-run housing co-op. Not because of any ideological reasons, but because it was cheaper than dorms or apartments and money was tight.
Despite a lack of oversight, us students managed to run the place without major issues. Everyone had their own duties and responsibilities when it came to keeping the co-op running, and for the most part everyone held themselves accountable. It was basically a microcosm of socialist ideals in how each contributor had a vital role and no one was more important than the other. We cooked, cleaned, and collaborated with each other. We respected quiet hours and study spaces. We had regular meetings to vote upon how we wanted tenant issues resolved, excess funds spent, group activities planned, and house rules to be amended. It was democracy in its purest form. Everyone that wanted to have a say did, and every compromise we reached was more or less mutually beneficial. If I wasn’t so caught up between work, school, and drug dependency, I might have appreciated the environment more than I did.
And then I remembered the girl I had most recently dated. As much as we enjoyed our date, it was clear that we had pretty different lives and different outlooks. I lived alone with my dog; I knew no one in a city I had just moved to; and I spent most of my time working and commuting just to afford the exorbitant costs of renting a one-bedroom in this part of the country. She, on the other hand, was living in a house with her friends; they had a garden and raised their own chickens; they got to hang out all the time; and because of how affordable that living arrangement was, she only had to work part time. And while I thought the idea was really cool on paper, I didn’t really see it working out for me. Lacking the looks or charisma that women mindlessly flock towards, I figured the best dating strategy would be to bank on my self-reliance. Having roommates wouldn’t really work with that.
There were many other curiosity-piquing things about her story for me to ponder in the months since our one and only date, so I never really thought about her living situation again until today. I started connecting the pieces and have since been utterly compelled by the idea of having my own home. I’ve lived in various house-sharing arrangements before, but they were always intended as stop-gaps in my travels. I never bought any furniture, I never planted any roots, I never invested any effort into truly understanding my housemates.
But what if I did? What if I had a group of people committed to making a house a home? What if I could finally have a makeshift family of my own? I started looking at multi-bedroom houses to rent in various cities I could see myself moving to, and a lot of them came out surprisingly cheap. If I had 3 or 4 other people to join me, I could get by working part time. We all could. We could have enough money to enjoy life, enough time to pursue interests, the support we all need under one roof, and the sense of purpose and devotion that comes with contributing to a community.
I imagined myself cooking family dinners for this motley crew of misfits. I imagined going out to buy second-hand furniture, organizing a pantry, chilling in the backyard, having amazing movie nights, impromptu shoulder rubs while we watch the idiot box, rushing to get ready to go out for a night on the town. I imagined my dog getting all the love and affection her stupid little heart desires. I imagined carelessly playing the bongo drums on someone’s butt while we lay around and talk about nothing well into the night. I imagined chairing meetings while we decide what to buy with unspent rent money. Maybe a new speaker system; maybe a piece of equipment for a home gym; maybe we rent some kayaks and enjoy a day on the water.
A part of me wonders if this line of reasoning is just the self-indulgent intellectualizing of much deeper psychological defect. It’s true I don’t have any kind of support of my own. This could all be maladaptive daydreaming giving me the palliative of hope in the absence of a purposeful direction. If only a lifelong journey towards aimlessness could be relieved by such a fantasy. Still, I think back at the people I’ve known that would want to be potential roommates in this dreamscape. How the despair of loneliness that once brought us together could replicate its success and unite us once again in pursuit of this goal. Or perhaps how some other lost souls would discover their sense of belonging in this pocket utopia.
To be honest, I’m not sure how realistic this all is. My date had known her housemates since childhood. The co-op had students too pre-occupied with their schoolwork to question much. The level of faith required for virtual strangers to buy-in to such an unproven concept is pretty daunting. And ol’ broken Lonely McHermitFace here isn’t exactly the best spokesperson to pitch such an idea. Never had friends or family his whole life and to put all his marbles into starting now? Kinda suspicious.
I’m going to see how long this high lasts. I never could avoid existential angst for very long. Still, I do welcome a reprieve from the soul-crushing isolation I’ve been occupying my time with recently. All things considered, to have something positive to think about in the chain of gloom and doom these journal entries have been is notable. Figured I’d share while the sharing was good.
“Home is where people notice your absence”
I met again briefly with the dog park guy, and as you do with people you only vaguely know, I relied on my collection of generic observations and imparted with him the comment that I hadn’t seen him in a while. Turns out there was a very interesting reason for not seeing him. He informed me that he had bought a sizeable chunk of land about an hour north of Seattle and was devoting whatever time and energy he had to transforming the land into his ultimate passion project. He told me he was slowly building his own community based around organic farming and environmental sustainability. The conversation didn’t last much longer than that, but what he said left me really inspired.
We had talked earlier about the gut microbiome and how we don’t understand how the food we eat really affects us. How the sharp uptick in depression and mental illness could have a lot to do with what microscopic atrocities our bodies consume. It’s a radical concept that I honestly haven’t seen the research on, assuming there even is any given how recent our awareness of microbiome is. But speculative science aside, I found it fantastic how committed he was to founding a community around a set of core values.
I’ve had a lot of free time to think about community and home and family. About what it means to be a part of something bigger than yourself, and how I had relented to never finding the answer first-hand. However, this train of thought left me reflecting a lot on my time in college. Unlike most university studnets, I spent most of those years living in an independently-run housing co-op. Not because of any ideological reasons, but because it was cheaper than dorms or apartments and money was tight.
Despite a lack of oversight, us students managed to run the place without major issues. Everyone had their own duties and responsibilities when it came to keeping the co-op running, and for the most part everyone held themselves accountable. It was basically a microcosm of socialist ideals in how each contributor had a vital role and no one was more important than the other. We cooked, cleaned, and collaborated with each other. We respected quiet hours and study spaces. We had regular meetings to vote upon how we wanted tenant issues resolved, excess funds spent, group activities planned, and house rules to be amended. It was democracy in its purest form. Everyone that wanted to have a say did, and every compromise we reached was more or less mutually beneficial. If I wasn’t so caught up between work, school, and drug dependency, I might have appreciated the environment more than I did.
And then I remembered the girl I had most recently dated. As much as we enjoyed our date, it was clear that we had pretty different lives and different outlooks. I lived alone with my dog; I knew no one in a city I had just moved to; and I spent most of my time working and commuting just to afford the exorbitant costs of renting a one-bedroom in this part of the country. She, on the other hand, was living in a house with her friends; they had a garden and raised their own chickens; they got to hang out all the time; and because of how affordable that living arrangement was, she only had to work part time. And while I thought the idea was really cool on paper, I didn’t really see it working out for me. Lacking the looks or charisma that women mindlessly flock towards, I figured the best dating strategy would be to bank on my self-reliance. Having roommates wouldn’t really work with that.
There were many other curiosity-piquing things about her story for me to ponder in the months since our one and only date, so I never really thought about her living situation again until today. I started connecting the pieces and have since been utterly compelled by the idea of having my own home. I’ve lived in various house-sharing arrangements before, but they were always intended as stop-gaps in my travels. I never bought any furniture, I never planted any roots, I never invested any effort into truly understanding my housemates.
But what if I did? What if I had a group of people committed to making a house a home? What if I could finally have a makeshift family of my own? I started looking at multi-bedroom houses to rent in various cities I could see myself moving to, and a lot of them came out surprisingly cheap. If I had 3 or 4 other people to join me, I could get by working part time. We all could. We could have enough money to enjoy life, enough time to pursue interests, the support we all need under one roof, and the sense of purpose and devotion that comes with contributing to a community.
I imagined myself cooking family dinners for this motley crew of misfits. I imagined going out to buy second-hand furniture, organizing a pantry, chilling in the backyard, having amazing movie nights, impromptu shoulder rubs while we watch the idiot box, rushing to get ready to go out for a night on the town. I imagined my dog getting all the love and affection her stupid little heart desires. I imagined carelessly playing the bongo drums on someone’s butt while we lay around and talk about nothing well into the night. I imagined chairing meetings while we decide what to buy with unspent rent money. Maybe a new speaker system; maybe a piece of equipment for a home gym; maybe we rent some kayaks and enjoy a day on the water.
A part of me wonders if this line of reasoning is just the self-indulgent intellectualizing of much deeper psychological defect. It’s true I don’t have any kind of support of my own. This could all be maladaptive daydreaming giving me the palliative of hope in the absence of a purposeful direction. If only a lifelong journey towards aimlessness could be relieved by such a fantasy. Still, I think back at the people I’ve known that would want to be potential roommates in this dreamscape. How the despair of loneliness that once brought us together could replicate its success and unite us once again in pursuit of this goal. Or perhaps how some other lost souls would discover their sense of belonging in this pocket utopia.
To be honest, I’m not sure how realistic this all is. My date had known her housemates since childhood. The co-op had students too pre-occupied with their schoolwork to question much. The level of faith required for virtual strangers to buy-in to such an unproven concept is pretty daunting. And ol’ broken Lonely McHermitFace here isn’t exactly the best spokesperson to pitch such an idea. Never had friends or family his whole life and to put all his marbles into starting now? Kinda suspicious.
I’m going to see how long this high lasts. I never could avoid existential angst for very long. Still, I do welcome a reprieve from the soul-crushing isolation I’ve been occupying my time with recently. All things considered, to have something positive to think about in the chain of gloom and doom these journal entries have been is notable. Figured I’d share while the sharing was good.
31-35, M
