I wasn’t going to comment but I just wanted to say that, “ It is always just a little bit sad not to be waiting anymore,” is going to be one of those lines I hear/read that is going to rattle around my head in perpetuity.
"I should have mistrusted it, and I should have known better."
Sure, but you were protecting yourself from a meltdown. Denial is actually a helpful psychological defense mechanism as long as it doesn't get out of hand.
"In February and for the first week of March in 2020, almost everything I had anticipated happened the way I had anticipated it, each day blossoming into the next."
I was too busy beforehand 1) getting Covid-19, 2) getting over it, 3) spending the entirety of February in a brain fog (I couldn't do proper math with the folding green money in my pocket and handed the guy 20$ plus proper change instead of 30$ plus proper change - on two separate occasions - fucking annoying), 4) having a quick trip to the land of the dead (nothing to see here!) 5) watching English football in the ICU (Liverpool over Manchester! Yay!) 6) getting out and feeling more normal than I had since the first week of January. Which wasn't normal, but better than February. The whole thing was like some serious freakshow surrealist arthouse movie, but with really dull cinematography. Pro-tip: never get a disease *before* everyone else gets it, no one will believe you or understand the problem at hand in any way, very much including the doctors.
At any rate, it was pretty obvious that things had hit an economic peak: there was quiet panic that started in August 2019 in a specific section of the money market funds that the Fed had to stifle, which surely indicated real problems. (That no one noticed in the end because the entire episode got stomped over by the Covid news/panic.) You're in good company - a lot of people came off the ski jump ramp in the fall, and didn't realize that flying feeling was all that airborne time before they hit the snow. (I felt some of that, but I've been through this one before.)
"I live in that moment before the descent starts, in the first rush of wanting, building a bridge into a blank-bright future."
I gave up on expectations awhile ago. Never panned out.
I wasn’t going to comment but I just wanted to say that, “ It is always just a little bit sad not to be waiting anymore,” is going to be one of those lines I hear/read that is going to rattle around my head in perpetuity.
"I can almost never have the thing that I want, because when I wanted it, I imagined the future in the conditions of the past." !!
Lovely piece - so far the best of the Green bits.
"I should have mistrusted it, and I should have known better."
Sure, but you were protecting yourself from a meltdown. Denial is actually a helpful psychological defense mechanism as long as it doesn't get out of hand.
"In February and for the first week of March in 2020, almost everything I had anticipated happened the way I had anticipated it, each day blossoming into the next."
I was too busy beforehand 1) getting Covid-19, 2) getting over it, 3) spending the entirety of February in a brain fog (I couldn't do proper math with the folding green money in my pocket and handed the guy 20$ plus proper change instead of 30$ plus proper change - on two separate occasions - fucking annoying), 4) having a quick trip to the land of the dead (nothing to see here!) 5) watching English football in the ICU (Liverpool over Manchester! Yay!) 6) getting out and feeling more normal than I had since the first week of January. Which wasn't normal, but better than February. The whole thing was like some serious freakshow surrealist arthouse movie, but with really dull cinematography. Pro-tip: never get a disease *before* everyone else gets it, no one will believe you or understand the problem at hand in any way, very much including the doctors.
At any rate, it was pretty obvious that things had hit an economic peak: there was quiet panic that started in August 2019 in a specific section of the money market funds that the Fed had to stifle, which surely indicated real problems. (That no one noticed in the end because the entire episode got stomped over by the Covid news/panic.) You're in good company - a lot of people came off the ski jump ramp in the fall, and didn't realize that flying feeling was all that airborne time before they hit the snow. (I felt some of that, but I've been through this one before.)
"I live in that moment before the descent starts, in the first rush of wanting, building a bridge into a blank-bright future."
I gave up on expectations awhile ago. Never panned out.
elm
great piece!