Rain Delay
While waiting for a rainstorm to pass through, Mike shares a candid reflection on his recent struggles - the latest iteration of his feelings of personal stagnation and disillusionment. George frankly discusses his "empty life" and the inadequacy of "coping mechanisms" to mask deep-seated sadness, highlighting a stark contrast with his past image as "most likely to succeed" in high school.
Good evening, this is Mike George coming at you live from Olde Towne East in Columbus, Ohio, on this rainy Wednesday, the 6th of June 2024, at around 9:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time. This is one of those rare occasions when I do an “Open Mike LIVE” broadcast on Facebook Live and it's not a beautiful day outside.
Just because it's rainy and shitty outside doesn't mean it's not still beautiful to look at, but not necessarily to bask in, especially when you account for all the water on the ground and the potential hazards of someone accelerating too hard in their car and splashing me. I don't have time for that nonsense, so I'm just going to stay here and aimlessly wander, I guess, much like I've been doing for what seems like the last couple years of my existence. This has been a weird week. There are times when the little joys and, let's be honest, the little bit of weed every so often—all those little coping mechanisms I've been using to paper over my really kind of empty life these days—well, there are times when the sugarcoating I've been so diligent about applying to my shitty ass life just kind of, you know, where the shittiness peaks through the icing.
It's days like that when I realize that what first seems like a randomly down day is just the veil being lifted from all the sadness out of my conscious mind. This has been one of those days, I guess. I've been feeling kind of down lately, to be honest. I guess I have to take a little bit of responsibility for it. The good news is there's a rational explanation for my downness; it's not just random sadness with no explicable reason or solution. I've just been reflecting and realizing the lengths to which I've been hiding a lot of the reality of the situation for myself, things like WANDA and other random things I was using to get through these days. I know I probably sound really upset, but these days happen every so often.
This coming autumn is my high school class reunion — my 20th anniversary of graduating from Steubenville High School. Reflecting back on high school with this occasion coming up, I can’t help but kind of laugh my ass off at the fact that I was voted “most likely to succeed. “ I have to admit, after being homeless for like a year and a half, I just can't help but look at that and kind of laugh my fucking ass off. I just think, "My goodness, I have let my class down, girl. I have let the Steubenville High School Class of 2004 down".
Shoot, I never wanted to be one of those kind of bougie, successful clichés, and I hated it. Now, I can't tell whether I hated that state more or this state now more. Obviously, I guess I should say, the solution as usual lies somewhere in the middle. The quest to find that sweet spot between not being an utter cliché on either side is kind of what becomes the adventure of life, I suppose. Honestly, I'm just exhausted by the adventure. It used to be fun; it was cute for like the first six months, but now it's just wearing on me. I'm realizing I'm 38 years old and this shit's getting real old, real fast. I know it should have gotten old; it really got old for me like a year ago. I'm just looking at the calendar, watching the months go by, and thinking, "My God, I'm still in this state". I can't complain because I honestly haven't done shit about it, so I can't really complain that I've tried and failed. I don't know anymore; I'm just kind of in this wandering state.
One thing I am sort of proud of, in a fucked up way, is that I've made it through this year and a half of being on the streets without ever succumbing to the feeling of wanting to kill myself. That's such a sad, sad thing to be proud of. It is. It's not even like I mean, whatever. I was reflecting on some of my Facebook Lives about humility and coming down from your little pedestal. I feel like by now I almost forget what the top of that pedestal even feels like anymore, because at a certain point, this whole life of having no money, no job, what feels like many times no friends, and no family in my life, it just feels like it's become normalized.
Man, this sucks. I didn't want this; this is not what I wanted for myself. Yes, I wanted a small taste of life on the streets just to kind of relate to everyday people, I guess, if or when I run for public office and find myself in some prominent position. But how can I even speculate on such childhood ambitions and dreams when this is where I'm at now? That's pretty much what I feel. It's weird; I think a sick part of me kind of likes the adventure of it all and the lack of obligation. It's sort of running away from the things that used to stress me out when I was a young professional and had commitments and obligations, otherwise known as adulting. I'm really trying to break down what it is, but like I said, I've just been very jaded. I can't even just say a rut; it's a rut in a deep-cutting way, I suppose.
As usual, here I am spilling my guts to you all and laying my vulnerable self to you all in what I'm sure will be some sort of foolish act. I know it's foolish of me to lay myself out like this on a public Facebook post. There was always a part of me that thought there was something virtuous about making myself vulnerable in public on a public Facebook feed, for much the same reason I would write my LiveJournal entries and make them public. The notion was, "Maybe just in case one of you guys was going through some of these terrible fucking things, at least you could find some small solace in knowing that you weren't alone out there, and that I have to go through some of this bullshit too". But I'm just tired of it, because it often feels like, "Why the fuck am I even doing this to myself? Why did I even step down from the comforts and trappings of bougie ass professional life?"
I kept kind of holding on to the notion that somehow, at the end of this whole thing, when I do get back to making the type of salary I should be making as a master's degree engineer at 38 years old, that somehow this year or year and a half "sabbatical" will have been worth it. But the longer this fucking thing persists and the longer I keep myself in this rut, the more distant that feels to me, and the more it starts to feel like, "God damn, I was delusional". I can't tell anymore. Reality has been such a weird thing for me because even some of my closest, most trusted friends have basically called me delusional and trashed what I've been working on, just because I'm not working in my full-time engineering shit. I can see it. Very few of them have been honest enough to say it out loud, and to be fair, the ones that have said it out loud are people I just don't talk to anymore, I guess for that reason. Again, maybe I'm being delusional.
But it's just been a lonely existence here. I don't know anymore if it was worse or better being on the streets in Columbus where I have a bunch of friends who have been radio silent despite being blocks away from me, or if it was better to be in New Orleans where I didn't know anybody. I don't know anymore, is it better to have silence from your friends or silence from strangers? That's kind of what it feels like. It's just frustrating because I remember when I was a kid promising myself that I wasn't going to be in a situation where I felt this lonely, because by now I wanted to have a family, a partner, and a posse. I just don't have any of that. Say what you will about the fucks I have left to give anymore about it all, I really just have checked out. I almost feel like I'm checking out of this Facebook Live update in the same way, because I'm just realizing that once again, almost metaphorically, here I am just spilling my guts into an empty fucking void, except for Brienne Conlin.
Hi Brienne, thank you for your comment, thank you for at least just saying "keep your head up". I'm not bored with my field; that's the funny thing, I love my field. That's kind of one of the inexplicable parts of this whole thing. I'm not at all tired of, I still believe in the mission of what I studied: renewable energy, making the grid cleaner and greener, and less reliant on fossil fuels. My skin is still in that game. I guess part of what I convinced myself was that there are ways I can be more effective than just being an engineer building windmills. Not that that's an unvirtuous thing. Good night, Brienne, it's really nice to hear from you. Thank you for leaving your comments and for that offer. Honestly, I haven't even applied for a job in months. I've been kind of checked out of the world of utilities and my typical haunts of electrical engineering jobs. It's weird, if I do go back into the utility industry, I want to be a fucking manager or something. I don't want to have gone through this whole thing and not have gained a "gross vector" from this. Part of the motivation behind leaving my last job, my "cisco job in Louisiana," was that I wanted to do leadership, I wanted to build something finally, something that was my own, not just work at a desk. Maybe it was selfish, and maybe looking back I should have invited more people into the process. I thought I did, I'm pretty sure I did. I'm not going to beat myself up over it because I'm pretty sure I reached out to a lot of people to help me with this thing and nobody stepped up. I'm not going to kick myself because other people failed to step up. I think I'm being fair when I say that.
It's so funny to see what has changed in the 20 years since we graduated and what hasn't changed. I still find myself uttering some of the stupid little catchphrases from high school, like Heather Smoker's "he's teaching, we need to be quiet" or "silence means be quiet"—that's my favorite. That very simple notion carries a universal significance. Another person that had been on my mind was Madame Fer, my French teacher. I got a really nice comment from her several months ago when I was feeling down, and it hit me. I do need to go back and reply to it.
No, we didn't get fucking old, Brienne, let me tell you, we are not old. We are seasoned, big difference. Old is something—and many of you have probably heard me say this already, it's one of my recurring catchphrases—old is the state of mind at which your curiosity about the world around you is utterly gone. That is what being old specifically means. I've been there; maybe I'm even there now, I don't know. I'm definitely not as deep into that oldness mindset as I was when I turned 30 or in 2020, when I was 34. I think I'm able to lift myself out of that mindset. And you know what helps do that? Honestly, there are lots of things, but one big thing that helps lift me out of that old mindset and makes me find joy in the world a little bit is children, kids.
Kids are refreshing. It's inspiring sometimes to see their take on some of the shittiness that we've left behind for them. It makes me inspired by kids often, especially this generation that had to live through 2020 and that lost year of school. I couldn't imagine being a kid in 2020. Things like that are what these kids are going through, and yet, when you're a kid, you don't know any better. That's the wonderful thing about being a kid: you have no reference point, you're not as entrenched in your biases. That's almost the essence of what childhood is—the fresh slate of being able to traverse life without the trauma, without the bias, and yes, without the experience and wisdom too. I often think of Ms. Frizzle's line, "We're gonna fuck up, we're gonna make mistakes, and we're gonna get messy". It's that fearlessness of just jumping into something and not giving a fuck about the clusterfuck that might ensue, or maybe just being unaware of it. Maybe it's the blissful ignorance and the innocence of it all. Seeing that, and maybe this is why a lot of you love having a kid, is being able to see the world through their eyes and almost resetting the clock as far as being sick and tired of the world.
But I don't want to even go into that subject too hard, because part of me is sad that I'm 38 years old and still not even close to having a child. That's such a remote thing. On top of that, I've just been estranged from everybody. I haven't talked to any of my family in at least a year, not even my mom. That really makes me sad. I didn't even call her for her birthday on May 1st, and I didn't even call her for Mother's Day. I don't even have her contact info anymore, though I suppose I could try harder. I hope she's okay. I choose to believe that she is. That's all I can say right now. This is such a departure from what often feels like I just kind of talk and talk and talk. So, Brienne, thank you for making this a little bit of a dialogue instead of yet another Mike George monologue of me just riffing into the void. It's nice to hear your voice in the Facebook comments.
Adoption is definitely something I want to do. I've obviously heard the argument that there are a lot of unwanted kids who want to be adopted. But also, I'm an only child, and the selfish part of me feels a little bit obligated to bear a biological kid, probably a girl. I would love to have a daughter, for my one biological kid to be a daughter. Probably a little bit because I always wanted one when I was a kid. That was kind of part of the loneliness of being an only child growing up. I even conjured up an imaginary big sister for myself. I wonder how often people do that, but it felt absurd, so I never really told anybody, because I'm sure I would have been made fun of, rightfully so. But no, just because of how much fucking hell I gave you, Brienne, when we were in elementary school.
I've been in a weird headspace, and maybe I just need to smoke some weed today; I haven't actually smoked any weed in a few days, so maybe we can attribute a little bit of that to it. But I got to do better. I know I need to do better. I need to live up to that version of Mike George in 2004 that was voted "most likely to succeed". You fools, you should have voted for Adam Rakovich, goddamn it. You fools, you made the wrong choice. But damn it, something I promised myself I would do when I finally do get out of this fucking rut or whatever this is, is that I want to take a lot of the anger that I have manifested. When you live on street level, obviously it brings a change in perspective and blah blah blah. There are certain things, I guess I'm kind of channeling the "woke" concept in a way, of living through the rapidly deteriorating and wet, disgusting shoes of those on the street. Something I always wanted to take away from what I'm calling my sabbatical at the end of this past year and a half of pennilessness and houselessness, is I want to take with me some of the intensity.
I think I have really grown. There are lots of things that have grown in me, that have been born for me, this last year and a half, as well as the time I was in Portland on the street. I want this to matter in the end. I don't want to have gone through this and fallen from whatever pedestal—I don't like that term, it sounds a little elitist—but I want to take with me the pain and the anger from the people on the street that I've gotten to talk to, and the joy. Not just the negative stuff. It always felt at times that I was in a bubble, that I never really knew what oppression was like, or that there was always that layer of privilege that I had. So, you know what I did? I cut the cord of that privilege and plummeted myself down into the valley below. I don't know if that's the right way to think about it.
Anyways, I feel like this is like the third Pride in which I have reflected on the notion of "what the fuck are we proud of?" What have we accomplished here as a queer community in the last few years that we have to be proud of? I can't think of anything. Can you? And I definitely can't think of anything individually for myself. So happy Pride. Go ahead and find a stripper and have your way. But at the end of the day, I think we should also be taking stock and maybe even, dare I say, be a little bit humble. Humility, by almost by definition, doesn't lend itself to a parade. Pride gets all the parades; what does humility get? The losers like me.
So on that note, Facebook Live, happy Pride. Remember that Pride's a sin, but nonetheless, indulge in it a little bit, and definitely be proud of who you are. That's the essence of what Pride was designed to be. But if you're going to be proud, let's also be a little bit humble, huh? And by that, I mean, listen a little bit. It's not just about you, but it is, it's a little bit about you, so don't beat yourself up either. But let's be humble, let's listen, let's stand up for other people too. The thing that I guess is my big soapbox that rails against Pride and identity politics in general is that it divides us. When we make everything about us, we're not standing up for others. When we don't stand up for others, when we don't come together in solidarity with other people who need our solidarity, then we just become fractured. It's kind of like what's going on with this country on a broad scale. Everybody wants to retreat into their labels, everybody wants to put themselves in a box and a label and wave a flag around for it. We can't even agree on what the fuck the Pride flag is anymore. That's a metaphor for what's wrong in this country. Everybody wants their own color, everybody wants to be special.
There's nothing wrong with that. Mr. Rogers said it best when he says, "You are special". And I don't think that specialness is a fixed pie where if I'm special that somehow deprives you of your specialness. No, I don't think special—now, granted, there is a finite level of attention span, so we kind of have to separate being special versus your need for attention of being special. The attention and the reward of being special is a little bit of a difference, and that's something I'm realizing as well. So, be proud, be good, be kind, and rewind—sorry, that was a Blockbuster reference, nobody even remembers what Blockbuster is; I'm old again.
But now I'm trying to get off of this Facebook Live on a somewhat positive note. I already feel better. Believe it or not, Brienne, this little dialogue between me and you has actually helped me a little bit, so thank you. As we take stock with regards to what we are proud of, which I still haven't been given an answer on that, I will invite you guys to be proud of who you are, but also, as I said, stand up for people. Stand up for your friends, stand up for the people that need the pride that we have been abundantly kind of hogging up. Gay men, I'm looking at you, sis. Gay men, I think by now it's clear that we are now the dominant market. We no longer get to bitch about not being able to marry or being beheaded if our father finds us jerking off with a guy. That burden is now, in many ways, on the trans folks.
One thing that really bothers me in the queer community is a lot of the gay men who just don't empathize with trans folks. I don't understand why it's hard to understand the struggle that a lot of trans folks go through with their gender identity. I don't understand why I have to educate gay men on the difference between gender and sexual and sex. Haven't we been through this already when we were coming out, when we were trying to convince society to accept us? How the fuck are we missing the lesson when it comes to trans folks? Why is it so hard to stand up for these folks? It's not fucking rocket science. Just do your homework a little bit and empathize a little bit. Get your head out of your ass a little bit, and again, let's not focus on our identities and our labels. Let's focus on solidarity a little bit. Let's actually try to unite a little bit as a community, not just obsess over our labels and how many colors on the fucking flag there are. Jesus fuck, let's just come together a little bit, please.
On that note, Facebook Live, this has been Mike George. Happy Pride, and take care of yourselves and take care of somebody else. Seriously, guys, stand up for these trans folks; they need us. Just as we needed our straight allies when we were going through a lot of the bullshit back in 2004 with gay marriage and George W. Bush and shit, let's kind of pay it forward a little bit, shall we? All right, bye.
