Pipedream (Preface)

The term “quarter-life crisis” sounds like alarmist drivel, but even without the “crisis”, it’s alarming enough. Getting out of anything should mean freedom. Getting out of jail is a good thing, right? So why not getting out of college? Getting out of your parents’ house? Getting the fuck out of Dodge?

That last one used to be my favorite, when I was but a sixteen-year-old angst factory. Like I knew anything about Dodge. At some point, I looked it up; discovered that the phrase came from Gunsmoke, of all things, a radio and television duo of shows that ran from the 1950s to the 1970s. Entertainment that tried to evolve with the times, but just ended up getting sucked under by disco and hair bands and yuppies, leaving this ridiculous phrase about a wild west town behind.

Are we seeing the connection here? Maybe I need to spell it out for you a little better. Take my parents’ garage, for instance. That place is filled with relics from my vast expanse of adolescence, like soil strata in zero-grav: everything old floats to the top eventually, where it doesn’t need to be touched, where it will sit until I have my theoretical children. Up by the rafters, on a makeshift shelf of old cabinet doors and warped two-by-fours, a plastic pony on wheels, complete with faded painted bridle sits next to two dollhouses in pink and purple paint, wrapped in clear sheeting, stacked beside cardboard crates of elementary school papers and projects that I’m sure I spent months of box-lunch scented anxiety on. 16 feet up in the galvanized scaffolding hovers the tomb of my yearbooks, photographs from disposable cameras of sleepovers and best friends I haven’t spoken to in years, drawings of Pokemon, ticket stubs from high school musical productions, costumes, art projects I lost interest in, notebooks of love letters and bad poetry and maybe a few good poems too. And then there’s the final layer, sitting on six inches of stacked scrap lumber, the sad building blocks of something resembling a hope chest, pieces of a life begun, but not yet planned or realized. A toaster, a twin-sized down-alternative comforter with holes chewed in it, boxes of books from grad school, salt and pepper shakers, an assortment of thrift store cookware.

So why don't I go back for it? Why don't I go back for the pieces of my life, all of the quips about Dodge that I left tucked in journals and the seams of old stuffed animals? Well, I guess that all depends on whether or not it fits into the new me, right? Yeah, right. What new me?