Stop making sense

“What are you up to?” “What’s new?” “What are your future plans?”

Is it just me, or are these questions suddenly loaded with judgment and the kind of poisonous venom typically reserved for snake bites and middle school girl fights?

These days, whenever I am asked a question about my future, my brain always reacts in the same way: It freezes for a second, then panics and scans itself for anything productive-sounding it could say. “Nobody wants to hear that you started taking guitar lessons or that you went swimming at the lake,” it says. “Nobody wants to hear that you went jogging for a mile a couple days ago and are ‘still riding that glow, hah hah.’” Everyone, though, apparently wants to hear about my job prospects.

So my brain starts sputtering out any leads I’ve gotten in the past month or so and tries to make it sound like I have it together. My brain also generally makes sure to mention I have been “reading a lot” because it sounds good, too. This process is exhausting, to say the least.

On one particularly bad weekend, I was asked by an interested party at a relative’s graduation what my “passions” were, my ultimate career goals. And I mean ... I have them, sure. But for some reason, the question left me overwhelmed and sobbing in the driveway, calling my childhood best friend, demanding to hear how scared on a scale of one to 10 she was about the future.

It is such an exciting time right now, you guys!

A handful of sleepless nights have left me watching television – I mean, reading – and thinking up coping mechanisms for this particular brand of anxiety. And I might have come up with something.

Here is what I am trying to tell my brain to tell itself these days, and I recommend anyone experiencing a similar internal struggle to do the same.

If any nice, interested family member, acquaintance or passerby asks you what your future plans or your current activities are and you start to melt down, just say this:
“Lately I have been eating a lot of fruit.”

When they furrow their brows and ask you what you’re really doing, for yourself and your career, you should scowl at them and then dismissively laugh off their comment. “Oh, I’m so far beyond just thinking about myself,” you can say. Then tell them you’ve realized that right now your calling involves Mother Nature herself, thank you very much, and that you’ve decided to focus on eating a lot of fruit, walking somewhere and then pooping the seeds so that fruit can have the chance at dispersal it’s always dreamed of. “What have you been doing for the greater good lately?!” you can then demand.  

If your friends live in Collins and/or shop at Bloomingfoods, chances are you’ll receive a lot of praise, but if not, don’t worry. You can at least have a laugh, avert the subject of your future and change the conversation to important things like what movies are coming out next on the “Five Buck Club.”