The Future is So Dark, I'm a Fool to Wear Shades

My whole concept of the future sense of things was always fuzzier than a peach in an Ewok costume, and it’s gotten much worse. I have no idea if any of this is even remotly trans related, but just in case it is, I thought I’d go into it for a bit to feel you all out and see if I strike a chord of similarity with anyone. The more we collectively learn about the condition of our existence the better for us and the better for those who come after.

Now my sense of the past is rock solid. I can recall the very tiniest of minutia of past events, conversations, and life in general. Well, for the most part. If said recall involves proper names or numbers of any kind, my mind goes blank and I fill in something inappropriate. And all this time my friends and family probably thought my propensity for using horribly exaggerated figures and cutsie or insulting nicknames for people was my quirky little way of being clever instead of covering for the fact that I have no idea.

The future, however, has always been a very vague concept; like I said, kind of fuzzy, foggy or downright non-existent. It’s had a few major effects so far, the first of which is turning me into a horrible procrastinator. If I don’t have to do it right this very second, it immediately gets shunted into a category of things of which there is a high probability I will never have to do them. Tomorrow is just a figment of imagination. A farcical entity in which to dump unpleasant tasks. Naturally, one of the other effects is that I tend to get surprised a lot. “Holy shit, is that today? Dammit! How the hell did that happen?” Let’s just say I’ve learned how to wrap a gift and drive stick shift at the same time. I get around this at work by keeping a rigorous schedule in Outlook, which I have set up to send me frequent urgent reminders constantly, and I found it much better than Post-It notes which don’t say jack shit, even if you highlight them or draw little cartoon stars around the urgent message. With hormones, it’s getting worse.

OK, not worse in the procrastination way. That’s started out as bad as it can be and still allow me to function as a human. Kept the status quo there, so that’s good. The big picture stuff is now hazy though as well. Like Buffalo snow squall lack of visibility where you are driving blind until you go under an overpass and for . 3 seconds and spot the slow moving Buick you were about to slam into. Yeah, I can deal, but it starts to feel uncomfortably dangerous as well.

Five years ago, I think I had a great 5 year plan going; big picture stuff as opposed to the day to day. Looking ahead from 2007, I would have described 2012 to have me happily married, possibly with another child, another promotion at work, a sound financial plan, and some really cool renovations done on the house. Normal guy shit, I guess, but then again I’ve never really known for sure. As you can see, it didn’t quite turn out that way. I never imagined I would be deciding what to wear to work right now; it simply would have been khaki’s and my Tuesday shirt. Nice and easy. Now it’s not so easy, and chances are I’ll be kind of late because whatever I think I’m going to be quickly putting on, will be taken off with high pitched grunts of frustration because it makes me look like shit. This is the very least of it.

Since I’ve announced my big change, friends, family, co-workers, and miscellaneous busy-bodies like to pepper me with hard questions. What are you going to do? Are you keeping the house or selling it? Where do you think you will live? What are my spouse and son going to do? Are you ever going to attempt another relationship? What are your long term plans? What are you doing this weekend? Thursday night? I have absolutely no fricking idea about any of it. Not even a shadow of a clue. Toss a coin, shake up a novelty Magic 8 Ball, or have me perform a deep thought analysis and the chances the answer will be right is equal across the board. Vegas won’t take odds on it and that tall hatted little mobster dude from Bugs Bunny cartoons won’t either.

So, my future is very vague; a painted over window into a place that doesn’t even exist in my mind anymore. The good part about this is that I don’t even care. Not even a little bit. I’m happy being me in the here and now, and the wonderful thing is, when that gets old and stale, a new here and now will be here, whatever that looks like. Why fret over a chimerical future that keeps getting pushed forward anyway? Of course if I ever change jobs, I’m totally going to blow the old “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” question. I’ll cross that bridge when it’s time, and if it even exists.

PS - This is awkward... but I"m way more likely to get to comments if they get left over at my Wordpress site (or is such an admission bad ju-ju here?), simply because WP doesn't lock up my browser. :-)

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