josh Allan

Just like everybody else, I suppose, I have good days and bad days. When I woke up this morning, I was pretty sure this one would be of the “bad” variety. I don’t really know what cosmic force determines what type of day I’m to have, or if it’s simply my own attitude/outlook/perspective, but right now I’m not sure it even matters, because today isn’t looking so hot.

I got back yesterday from my very quick trip to South Dakota for my Grandpa’s funeral, which was Saturday. Like I thought it would be, it was as good as can be expected, although I must say it was harder for my family than I anticipated. I still have a hard time being sad about this, for the reasons I explained in the last entry, and because however cliche, I do think he must be in a better place than the place he was in on this planet, which was, frankly, horrible.

Family, especially extended family, gives off this frustrating aura of paradox, because they’re your family (thus implying that you should be very close to them, emotionally and otherwise), but I know for a fact that most people’s families aren’t so much like this. Mine is no different. I’m at these large gatherings feeling like I should be able to share my soul with these people; that, of all people on earth, these people of flesh and blood relation should understand where I’m coming from. But they don’t. They’re just like everybody else, too, and they want to talk about themselves. And it ends up being a bunch of “small talk” everywhere: in the corners, around the dinner table, in the cars around town.

I’m not sure how “small talk” evolved or if it has always existed, but a critical point within it is always about your job, or what you “do.” Since I do, effectively, nothing, I had the pleasure of being reminded of this fact — by myself, of all people — about 36 billion times over the 27 hours I was there. And you know, everyone’s really positive about it and everyone says that they’ve “been there,” but nobody seems to remember how terribly frustrating it is to hear 36 billion people tell you 36 billion times that they’ve all, apparently, “been there.” And that “something will come up.”

“Well, Mr. Smarty-Relative, since you seem to know so clearly that ’something will come up,’ perhaps you also know WHEN that might be? Because if you’ve got some kind of exclusive connection to the meaning behind all this, I’m going to be very upset that you’ve been holding out on me.”

And that’s what I say in my head. 36 billion times. While, at the same time, making small talk. Like most of us, probably, I’m horribly efficient at maintaining a glorious facade of contentment while the hope inside me gets surreptitiously chipped away like Tim Robbins digging his hole through the wall of Shawshank.

And I keep yearning for the day when I can look back at this entry and say to myself, “Wow, Josh, you were a total MESS back then!” And then I’ll laugh, because I’ve put it all behind me, locked up in jars on the shelf, as unmemorable and pointless as all the small talk.