Amazing Journey

Exactly one hundred twenty-six days ago, I silently made a decision. A promise to myself. In six more days, I will see that promise fulfilled.
Getting to this point required a large amount of hard work, dedication, and focus. Being that I am an inherently lazy individual, my definition of "hard work" is likely a little lax compared to others', but it felt like moving mountains.
This isn't something I came to overnight. It was an ongoing process, still is, something I take with a large grain of salt and no small amount of trepidation and fear. But, in the last five months, I think I've learned to conquer fear. Or at least quell it to such a minute sliver that I can effectively pretend it does not exist.
Not that I claim to have some sort of special knowledge or secret key to fulfillment; the only thing I know is that there are many things I do not know. I like to believe wisdom lies in knowing one's limitations, and I weigh these on a daily basis. The human condition, and striving to understand it, is a many fractured, contradictory science of ifs and buts. If I pretend I am unafraid, fear ceases to exist compounded with ignoring something does not make it go away, for instance.
In choosing to set my sights on reestablishing a life in Indiana, I hold no malice toward the life I built here, the people I met and knew, the accomplishments I made, and the immense help I received in doing so. You could go so far to say that nothing I have yet built for myself has been made independently, that to pat myself on the back for doing anything is selfish and ungrateful. Part of choosing to forge ahead in a new (yet old) place is in pursuit of true independence: living in a castle you built from scratch, with no help whatsoever.
I do not hold any illusion that I am there yet, or even that I am ready. For all of my hard work and dedication I poured into these last years, those efforts are nothing compared to the monumental task that lies before me. But what I am ready for, and I hold true for myself, is that accomplishing these goals is my number one priority.
When this year began, I had high hopes and dreams. Most of these were shattered completely (one of the reasons I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions; life changes too quickly and without notice to make those big-picture plans for yourself), but I did choose to climb out of the rubble and emerge a new man. I think I've done a well enough job. If you do not immediately recognize me, do not be afraid. Sometimes I do not even recognize myself. But I learned that it is a natural evolution, a fulfillment of early promise, a promise in itself of things to come.
I learned that wallowing in self-pity and misery is no way to live, but is in fact a great way to die (as I nearly discovered), so now I choose how to think. This may sound trivial, cliche, or void of any great philosophical truth, but I learned it is a great secret, one worth uncovering. Learning and choosing how to think. I learned that one of the greatest obstacles our generation faces is falling into a default mode of solipsism and self-centeredness, albeit in a different form than most people think of when they hear the word "selfish." I learned that my default mode of thinking is usually to assume that I am a victim, an unfairly treated and shit-upon individual whose struggles are so much more vast compared to others that I should be a martyr. I learned that feeling and thinking that the entire world is out to get me, that every other lifeform on earth's sole purpose was to fight and degrade me, is just as bad as solipsism, and a very sinister form of selfishness. I learned that in order to be who I want to be, I have to realize and accept the fact that I am but one man in a large sea of people, no bigger or more important than anyone else. Humbling yourself like this, I learned, is also extremely difficult, and does not happen overnight.
My transformation thus far has been multifaceted. I shed the shackles of the past, the memories and experiences that I feared had broken me as a human being and permanently labeled me "damaged goods." I accepted my mistakes, and purged many of the demons that had led me to this solipsistic attitude. I lost weight. I fought to change my physical appearance to reflect the changes within. I made straight A's in school for the first time in the history of my secondary and post-secondary education. I discovered renewed purpose through a talent I had previously assumed was worthless. I made it my mission to sharpen it. I made peace with a man I blamed for all my problems. I sought to learn how to strengthen the bonds between me and those I call friends. I strove to embrace change and accept it.
Change is a funny thing, though. I understand that it is the only thing you can rely on in life's journey. But I have also come to believe that part of this quest is to reject certain notions of change. We fight and struggle against the chaos of our journey to hold onto some things, to make sense of the storm and resolve some sense of order to our lives; to find some constant, some platform and base to rest on when we are weary, to collapse on when we are defeated, to get back up from when we are motivated, to celebrate on or cry in. I cannot tell if this is foolish or noble. But I believe that those of us that achieve it attain a certain level of happiness and fulfillment that others lack. I will go with the flow, and ride this wave, come what may, but along the way I will make sacrifices to hold onto the people I love. This is my test. This is my spirituality.
Just wait and see.

R.I.P. D.F.W.

Here is the scene:

V.F.W. Post #6917. The entire back room, which is about the size of a small indoor concert venue,¹ has been rented out for a baby shower. My cousin, whose mother has undertaken the mighty task of planning and pulling off this shindig, is the young mother-to-be. She has hired outside help to come in and strip and wax the floors, the cost of which I won't even bother to divulge here.² We arrive shortly before 11:00 AM to begin preparations.

Two rows of five fold out tables, each about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide, are placed in the direct center of the room. The entire hall is flooded in fluorescent light, courtesy of three rows of five fixtures each. Each table has a light blue silk cloth draped on top of it, along with chintzy centerpieces, party favors, small baby-bottle shaped containers of candy and gummy bears, and small blue pens (the purpose of which will only be revealed later). Each table has eight fold out chairs stationed around it, four on each side. The east and west walls are adorned with heavy, dark, navy blue curtains to cover up the dart boards that hang on the walls. Banners reading “IT'S A BOY!” are strung across the top of the curtains.

Small sandbag weights, each holding a plethora of multicolored helium balloons, are placed in the center of each table.

The south wall has four more such tables, each with matching tablecloths, clustered around it. Each table has about a dozen trays of Korean food. The husband of the young mother-to-be is half Korean, and his family (but mostly his mother's friends) have showed up en masse and each one has prepared native dishes. There is enough food to feed a small army.³ The western wall has two eight-by-four tables lined up alongside it, each with its own light blue tablecloth, with the addition of darker blue tableskirts attached around the edges, making them appear more festive. Perched on top of the tables is a multitude of presents and gifts. They completely fill the table, and getting them all to fit was not unlike an amateur game of Tetris. In addition to the bounty of presents are three separate cakes: one chocolate, one white, one marble.

The tables with the presents are also adorned with helium balloons, and excess balloons are placed on top of unused, stacked-up chairs in the far northwest corner. Thin, blue paper streamers are strung across the ceiling, meticulously twisted just so as to give them a helical shape, and crisscrossed to meet in the center, where another cluster of balloons are hanging from the ceiling.⁴ Also along the western wall is a sine wave of colored lantern-lights hanging from the ceiling, which are plugged in to the northern wall via extension cord.

The extravagance of the occasion cannot be overstated.

Guests begin flooding in shortly after 2:00 PM, and I wisely choose a corner seat in the back (i.e., the north end), a vantage point from which to observe. I am here to determine the answer to a question that has been nagging in my brain since the whole thing started: what really is the point of a baby shower?

Food is served immediately. The line takes over fifteen minutes to get through, and all the people standing in it constitute a veritable melting pot of cultures; an Americana microcosm. Koreans outnumber Anglos and Hispanics about 2-to-1, of which there is about an equal number of, and there is one lone Brit. His name is James, and the task of keeping him company sort of fell on me by proxy. Everyone else in my family has sort of fell into a separate niche of company, save for my youngest cousin, who is shoved so far up his girlfriend's ass it's hard to believe he's consciously aware of anything or anyone else around him. The final table in the buffet line is filled with over a dozen porcelain plates arranged on tiered platforms that contain fresh fruit and vegetables and dips of every conceivable variety. The honeydew melon is remarkably fresh.

James and I fill our plates to the brim and take our seats in the back. We don't speak much, he mostly makes pointed observations about how much different this ceremony is in the United States compared to the United Kingdom.⁵ I have no idea what any of the food on my plate is. Some of it I've had before at other social functions where Korean dishes were served, but I know not the names of these dishes nor what their ingredients are. Indeed, only one has meat in it so far as I can tell, the rest seems to be made up of rice, beans or seeds of some kind, and small, stringy, crunchy noodles that taste like something that would typically be fed to marine life in captivity. It smells like an indoor aquarium. My plastic fork snaps in half with a loud thwack when I attempt to cut into the meat, so I relegate myself to a mountainous heap of refrigerated deli spirals. My stomach begins to hurt after less than ten minutes.

My family is spread out rather linearly: my mother sits in the row in front of me, my aunt two rows in front of her, and my youngest cousin one row ahead of her. My cousin's girlfriend appears to be staring at me for the majority of the meal, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat, trying to avoid letting her know that I am aware that she is indeed staring at me and that it is making me uncomfortable. A large man in a red shirt and a backwards cap sits across from me and James. He has large tattoos on his arms in the design of pirate flags. I instantly despise him.

Despite this being a specialized celebration, there are in fact three pregnant women here.⁶

A cavalcade of small children (who were presumably only interested in consuming sweets) are running around the room, screaming at each other and making guttural noises that I cannot decipher. Three of them are small Hispanic girls, their pink and green dresses presenting an image so diametrically opposed to their demeanor it is downright frightening. They are like miniature, well-dressed nightmares.

After the meal, a raffle is held in the form of small games,⁷ the winners of which get to pick from a selection of pricey home appliances and sundries. No one seems to be really interested, despite the fact that my aunt's loud voice and years of experience as a teacher allows her to command the large room instantly and hold everyone's attention. Another couple sits down across from me and James. The man says to us “I'm not playing baby games,” then looks to whom I presume to be his wife and says “You can play baby games.” He and James sit and pick at the candy on the table, popping sweets into their mouths absently.

Instead of playing along, I continue to sit by myself and observe.⁸ I still haven't figured out what the point of all this is. I can't help but feel that it's kind of obnoxious. There are more gifts here being handed to the young mother-to-be than all of my birthdays and Christmases combined. And for what? They're technically supposed to be for the baby, but the baby isn't even here yet, so really they're for my cousin. It's not like the baby really needs them, or even has the capacity to be grateful for them. Sure, the baby needs clothes and diapers and such, but my cousin is well-off, and her husband can more than provide for the child. The whole affair is just gaudy.

A sort of post-meal lethargy steals over me, and I saunter outside to have a cigarette.⁹ It is well after 4:00 PM now. While I'm smoking, several guests begin filing out, heading home early. I contemplate jumping in my car and leaving as well, but, being part of the family, I will be expected to stick around and help clean up afterward. Leaving now would definitely assure me an ass-chewing later on. James peeks out momentarily and asks for a hit off my cigarette.¹⁰ I shudder to think of how much money this whole bonanza has cost the parties involved. Granted, my cousin's husband's mother is extremely well-off, and it means very little to her either way, so long as her son and daughter-in-law are satisfied, but this has undoubtedly put a severe strain on my side of the family.

After smoking, I find that the nicotine has done little to reinvigorate me, and I end up taking a small nap with my head on my arms at the table.¹¹ When I awaken, nearly everyone has left, and my cousin is still seated at the front of the western wall, unwrapping presents. My mother is sitting next to her with a pad and pencil, diligently documenting everything she receives and collating the various cards and notes attached to the presents. I stumble groggily to the refrigerator behind the tables of food, which several Korean ladies are beginning to clean up and put away before leaving, and get a bottle of water, then slouch back down in a chair and check my phone. Some of the balloons seem to empathize with me. 5:30 PM. My youngest cousin is already gone, he had the good sense to get out before he was asked to do any manual labor, and is most likely at home right now boinking his girlfriend. I shudder again and shove this thought from my mind.

Finally, after the last present is unwrapped, and everything is loaded into my cousin's husband's truck, and the trash has been taken out to the dumpster in the dirt parking lot, and the folding chairs and tables have been picked up and stowed away in the northwest corner, and the floors have been swept, and the streamers taken down, and the leftovers loaded up in my aunt's car, and the balloons shoved in the backseat, and everyone double checking their pockets to make sure they haven't forgotten anything, and all the perfunctory hugs and goodbyes have been executed, I make my way back to my car, which has been sitting in the sun for over seven hours now, put my key in the ignition, shrug and say “Well, at least we got a free meal out of it,” then pull away, and merge onto the highway in the setting sun.

1 For anyone reading who has been to the Emerson Theatre in Indianapolis, you wouldn't be far off.

2 Hint: it's a three digit number, and the first digit is larger than five.

3 I have no idea what this expression means. How large is a “small army”? There were roughly eighty people in attendance, but this hardly constitutes any army, even a small one. Suffice to say, there was a shitload of food.

4 These particular balloons are not filled with helium, for obvious reasons of elementary physics.

5 Including, but not limited to, calling diapers “nappies”.

6 One of the attendees, in fact, seems confused as to which baby's arrival she is supposed to be celebrating.

7 Mostly puzzles involving coming up with words for animals using each letter of the alphabet (the entire shower is centered around the theme of Noah's Ark and under-the-sea type gaiety), and a house variation on “The Price is Right.”

8 It's not like I could really win, anyway. I'm technically part of the group that's hosting the celebration, and awarding me prizes would undoubtedly be seen as nepotism; besides which, none of the items on display really interest me.

9 Salem Menthols, which I got on sale, and are not my preferred brand.

10 Which he affectionately refers to as a “square.”

11 A practice which I perfected in high school, and still to this day seems like second nature to me, despite the incredibly awkward posture involved.