Watersheds and Rabbit Holes

 About a year ago, I ventured back online a bit.  It was the first time I started experiencing some positive feelings in a long time.  I got a Samantha Gibb sticker to put on my old classical guitar, and a great Gibb Collective t-shirt, with the wonderfully spare yet beautiful rendering of Maurice' trademark black Trilby, purchased last summer.  I drank coffee out of mugs with Girl in the Woods' dogs, "Moose" and "Da Woof," on the side.  I found one of my kids' old School of Rock guitar picks, was even starting to play a little again.  I got a new honest-to-goddess record player, and dug out some ancient albums.  I was catching up on the comedy specials I had missed, during my years of avoiding the internet and having no cable.   During one particular comedy special, I laughed, for real, for the first time since I couldn't remember when.  It was a Marc Maron special.  He has a gift for comedy.  His tour was bringing him to a town near me, and I was gonna see my first live comedy show in the fall.

Sometimes I have moments happen that in hindsight, I recognize were watershed moments.  Such a moment happened to me late last summer, and it changed the trajectory of my next 8+ months.  I now think of it as "The Millennial Moment."  I was getting gas.  A person around the age of my children was doing the same.  She mentioned she was from the town where Mr. Maron would be performing soon.  I mentioned I planned to see Maron's show there.  

The look on this person's face changed.  Her physical being and aura changed.  She was someone who would be listened to.  (Omg, I just realized that was her self-agency surrounding her space.)  She said I was old enough to know Mr. Maron's history, how he popularized the fucked-up joke, "That's why there's a law."  (I did remember that joke.  I did not recognize Mr. Maron, now, as the one who told it when I first saw it performed on TV decades before.  It was a joke my father and the sda principal both had told a version of.) She said Mr. Maron was now on tiktok, because that was where his preferred dating pool now was, the average user age there not even allowed to see a Maron show alone, so were not part of his target audience.  (That changed toward the end of his recent tour.  He got PG ratings.  His material didn't change, just his potential audience.)  She said he dated much closer to teenage than his own age.  She ended by telling me I was a poor excuse for a feminist.  I could literally picture the mic-drop meme that was her exit, as she got in her car and drove away.

I was angry at that millennial for interrupting my recent ability to enjoy parts of life again.  I had never been publicly categorized as a Gen-Xer by an exasperated millennial to my face before, and it had landed.  I planned to wipe her words from my head, and forget I ever met her.  It was not to be.  I despise people who refuse to look at actual evidence, simply because they decide they like an asshole politician or preacher, or anyone they choose to blindly trust, when real evidence is shown to them.  So, I had to give things a once-over. I had to see if that millenial's words were true. I entered a rabbit hole, and was hit with pain that is very personal, to me and other's like me.  

I very much respect that person who modeled agency and frank honesty for me, at that gas station last August.  I learned from her.