The Footnotes of Our Lives

DAY FORTY-TWO: The Pauper Makes a Footnote

There's a reason reality shows typically have some sort of writer credited.  It's because reality itself isn't all that interesting.  As I sit on my couch in my pajamas at 12:40 p.m. on a Thursday, I can tell you this statement is chock-full of truth.

Time in a lifespan is relative.  It's why I can remember at four-years-old a terrifying nightmare my brother told me he had about a monkey popping a balloon and screaming at him, but I can't remember what I had for lunch one week ago today.

Though if routine has anything to say about it, odds are on the turkey sandwich's side.

Our lives are marked by moments, footnotes, and events.  It's only in retrospect that we can differentiate.  A first kiss to a 14-year-old girl on the bleachers during a football game can seem like a monumental event.  But twelve years later, after hundreds of other kisses - some meaningful, some regretful, some forgotten - that kiss loses its impact.

Is there any way that we can determine the significance of an event in the moment?  For an alcoholic, an event can be as simple as that first lonely swig of the bottle, and the comforting warmth the liquor can bring.  But it can also be an intervention, trip to the hospital, or horrific car accident that can symbolize an important life event.  Or perhaps none of these amount to much beyond extraneous bills and continuing down the path of destruction.  The thing is, we will never be able to tell in the moment what a moment means to us.

I've been going on and on about this monumental decision I made.  Whether stating it in blog form or blathering to my family at a recent wedding, I've been describing this event as the turning point in my life.  But there's no way of knowing this to be true.  On the one hand, this could be my break from the monotony of a thankless office job, and I can figure out my true calling.  On the other hand, this could be the moment my development became arrested, and I meander through life working odd jobs just to pay the bills, but never amount to much more than a common prole.

You often hear success stories where people make a pivotal decision to pursue their dreams.  I heard that Halle Berry was homeless, that J.K. Rowling took her child and escaped an abusive husband in the middle of the night, or that Elizabeth Berkley actually threw crystals on the stairwell of her rival to ensure a starring part in a Las Vegas showgirl revue.

That last one was possibly a fictionalized account.

You hear these stories, and it simply seems like some sort of footnote on that person's life.  Like it wasn't much of a struggle because, hey, look where they are now!  It's often read as such a small moment building toward the final outcome.  But I've started to imagine what those moments must have felt like.  Those decisions people are forced to make in order to make their lives better, or at least tolerable.  And even if it winds up as a footnote in an interview or on a Wikipedia entry, it meant something much larger to the person who lived that life.

But for right now, my monumental decision has passed.  I'm out of work, and I can't change that decision.  Right now, I'm just experiencing the doldrum of the day in and day out.  Attending comedy classes and rehearsals at night, but spending the majority of my days either reading about screenwriting, writing, or watching episodes of 30 Rock for inspiration.  It's not much of an interesting life at the moment, but hopefully it will go down in my history books as a little footnote on the path to greatness.