An extended car metaphor

(yes I've just passed my driving test)

I rolled my friend’s 2008 Ford Fiesta onto the kerb at midnight instead of having an existential crisis in my bed. Experience is just silly letters on a silly screen and being distracted by people until I die. Friends, family, partner are all good distractions until you’re alone and the tank is empty.

Things need to be tangible to make sense — touching grass, feeling the wind, squeezing an arm, 30th wedding anniversary parties — yet the good parts of my relationships are intangible. They’d melt into the air if you tried to touch them. Figure that one out. Working from home is fraught with intangible things forced into tangible shapes, and the problems will come to us in due course.

I’ve played squash for almost six years and still lose to men who hit hard. The rat race is not optional. No matter how good the pedals feel under my feet, no matter how much I think about driving away — the commute is still there. The car still stalls from time to time. You have to forget about it, because can you hear the family dog longing to be looked after? How could you let her down?

I wrote a note on the back of my left hand that says PRODUCE, as opposed to its evil twin, CONSUME, and this is the result.