experiences within experiences

Only a few friendships forged during my brief stint in Dayton remain. Everything’s fading like a half-remembered dream. These friendships have shot off in wildly different directions. We’ve all moved away from Dayton, and we’re focusing on those friendships closest to us, we’re getting lost in these new chapters in our lives. Jessica’s got a boy-toy, she’s slaving her ass off as ASM at Brown Street, she’s pursuing her painting as she reconnects with Wilmington friends and makes new ones. My situation’s not too different: I’m in Cincinnati now, working at a coffee shop I can actually take pride in, pursuing my writing as I become engulfed in all the opportunities radiating around me. And things at Spring Valley? New store manager, half the employees started after I left, and now Jessica’s gone and Carly’s soon-to-be-gone, and the store’s virtually unrecognizable. Dewenter’s in Cincinnati now and Dylan’s in Mozambique. Those friends I spent most of my time with, we hardly spend time together anymore (though Dewenter, Tyler and I remain close and hang out often). Most of my friendships in Dayton, they flourished for but a brief moment, a quickly-fading snapshot. Our lives connected for that time, and we were made a little bit more whole. But the circumstances that brought us together—namely, the snaking currents of our lives—would be that which tore us apart.

And though I’d hoped that, at the least, Jess’ path and mine would curl and entwine like vines rising high, the fact that we were both in “transitional phases” (if there is such a beast) kept such a thing from happening. We’re all trying to survive, trying to “make it,” pursuing our dreams—theater, art, writing, whatever—and doing all this in different ways, so that the connection we shared has been dismembered as we’ve gone our separate routes. I shot out first, and then everyone else followed, suffering the same fate.

While we like to think of our lives as linear, maybe another approach would be more fitting, that of life as a series of experiences within experiences, and when experiences begin to change, these are transitional phases (and most of the time we’ve no idea where they’re going, and half the time we don’t know transitional phases till after the fact). As an aside, “transitional phrases” are a sort of crock; they’re measurements of cognitive, social, and environmental changes as these changes affect the shape and contours of our lives. But all these things are constantly evolving, taking on shape, and life moves in accordance with them. Point being: all of life is “transitional”, as life is constantly changing not in a vacuum but in lieu of these things, and our attempts at making distinctions reflect our ingrained attempt to find some reason and rhyme amidst the muddled chaos. We need there to be order, especially in the mess of it all, something to give this meaning. And so I contemplate this other way of looking at life, as a series of interlocking experiences, each directly influencing the next and drawing sustenance from the one before it. The shape of our life finds itself not due to the declarations of Fate, Destiny, or even God; rather, it’s due to these experiences and how they shape us.

Or, rather, the shape of our life is due to how we shape ourselves as we give events meanings in our interpretations of them. Events in an of themselves have no power, but they gain power as we thrust them through our cognitive grid, interpreting them in light of our over-arching view of reality (our “worldview”, as it were). Thus events take on power, a power we give them, and so our interpretation of these events and our consequent perception of them shapes our lives. Not that our lives, then, are wholly the result of cognitive processes; our actions, the actions of others, and the senselessness of a world without love or hate all lend to where—and how—we end up.

Looking at life in this way, I see that my time in Dayton—a little bit under a year and a half—is itself a different part of my life, a different chapter, a different season. Now things are different, a whole new set of experiences—cognitive, social, and environmental—and thus my life has changed. All our lives are changing, but I’m pretty sure none of us can say where they’re going. It’s not up to us, and that’s just a fact. We have a hand in it, to be sure: but there are greater hands being played then our own, and though I never advocate folding, the end result is most often losing multiple hands and then losing the game.