fourth year jacob porter

It’s 4 a.m. for the 6th or 7th night in a row, though I can’t be entirely sure about this. Time has stopped mattering for the most part. So has light. I find myself staring at the ceiling in my room in my parents’ house, a planet within which I feel more alien than I have in years.

My room is dark lately. Sometimes a soft glow emanates from whatever’s on TV: the news, Minecraft, episodes of “Steven Universe.” “Better Call Saul.” More news footage. Link winning a game of Smash. Another infected. Grand Theft Auto. Another dead. “Westworld.” 45 cases. Transformers 2 on some movie channel - I switch it off instantly. 1000 deaths in New York alone. Lil Dicky’s new show on FX blaring in the background.

(That last one proves to be my breaking point.)

I shuffle to the bathroom, get a glimpse of my wild hair in the mirror. As I look at my reflection, my mind wanders to what the world outside must look like.

The bathroom walls crumble away.

The outside world is a cacophony of panic and misinformation and anger and hellfire. I cling to the sink as this fire threatens to consume me and everything else. But once the realization that I haven’t left my home in several weeks sinks in, the fire dissipates into weak, flickering embers, revealing a familiar black void.

The noise outside, once thunderous, is gone, and now that you know how to ignore it, the only sound is that of your own breathing.

It’s terrifying.

It’s easy to see this as the mind inventing new problems. “Now that the paranoia of constant death has been assuaged, time to dig deep into those insecurities with all this time we have,” your brain says.

What a dick.

Sometimes, self-reflection is good. But there’s such a thing as too much, and once that healthy period wears off, it can become... unnerving to sit with yourself for so long. It’s only a matter of time before your reflection becomes somewhat unrecognizable. But maybe that just means it’s time for you to change.

“Steven Universe” ended a couple weeks ago, and with it, the final ties to my childhood. My college career ended, and with it, ties to a structure that had kept me grounded for 4 years. The entire world feels like it’s ending, and with it, my last ties to anything that ever made sense.

But isn’t that how everything goes? Isn’t everything just a chaotic whirlwind that you figure out how to navigate just before you look out past the dock and see another storm on the horizon? Aren’t we here to make sense of that senselessness until it doesn’t make sense anymore, then rinse, repeat, and do it all again?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. I don’t claim to know. What I do know is —

Back in reality, I stare into the mirror (shoutout J.T). I give myself a wink. I go to bed.

Sometimes, that’s all you can do.

As Justin Timberlake Serenades the End Times