beating existential crises, the hidden realizations of rekindling, and the value of theme parks

i’m 25 now. my brain is fully developed (it’s not). so what’s more fitting than shortly after my celebration having my first quarter life crisis on my current path in life that i have deemed necessary and essential already? i don’t understand why we collectively call quarter and midlife crises “quarter” and “midlife” crises. the average american male lives to be about 75 and some change. anything more is a blessing apparently. psalm 90:10. i’ve always heard it from hers. so why not call a quarter life crisis a “third” (close enough) life crisis, and a midlife crisis a “time’s ticking” or something. or a “last call”. wait, a “last call” is actually pretty great. most of our parents could be in a “last call”. how are they living? i think the source of my crisis is the pressure of settling in now that i am starting to feel more acclimated to my environment and the “newness” of where i am is subsiding. don’t get me wrong, at times living here sucks incredibly. but simultaneously i feel like my year is actually starting to begin. all of the previous months were just trials for my nervous system. my nervous system is looking forward to august. i went out with my people here the other night and i felt myself returning to a sense of who i am instinctively. who i’ve always been. who i really want to be. i’m beginning to feel more comfortable being in my body around those i care about again and to be honest i don’t know what to make of it yet. i’m sure this realization will lead to a private wave of emotion at some point in the near future. significant experiences in my life sometimes take a while to fully set in like some people. this is probably why the actual act of moving state-to-state has never been an issue for me until after it’s all done, and i find myself sitting alone on a curb outside of my new house and am confronted by my subconscious on what and who i am fully leaving behind. true story. real existential life crises cannot be ignored or thrown by the wayside. which you would think is obvious but complacency and inaction seem to possess us all in a way most of are unaware of or feel completely inept to do anything about. especially today. it’s incredibly sad. for me, intense existential moments that arise from seasons of action and alignment in my life expresses itself in the form of sudden intense anxiety wrapped around unwarranted doubt. i say unwarranted because when i’m convinced that a path i am currently taking is worth it after all the prayer, trade offs, and risks have been accessed, any feeling such as the one just mentioned that i am currently grappling with i immediately question its validity. when it is just raw negativity not backed by any particular reason other than doubt, it’s bullshit. it feels like deterioration without a catalyst. i have to continue to trust, push forward, and leave it to god to deal with. too many times in my life i have given up on actions, interests, and potential paths in my life behind the smokescreen of exploration. which is partially true. but the real reasons behind why i have jumped while on various paths is because when the going gets tough, i quit. and i quit because i told myself i just wasn’t interested anymore, and again sometimes true, but mostly it is because i had never fully come to terms with the fact that you have to work for everything that matters to you in life. no matter how easy or difficult. you have to work. we are called to work. there is purpose in work. not necessarily through a “job”, but through work itself. i have consciously known that, but internally i had never come to agreement with it. what i am doing right now i have to see through. sacrifice and all. for my own sake, my own calling, and for my own redemption for what i have abandoned in the past. ironically, now for the first time in my life feeling aligned behind a calling, struggle and all, i don’t want to be a sisyphus figure anymore. i want to be fully present in however long it is my current calling is for. knowing that there really is never an “end goal.” “happily ever after” is a myth. we get that when we’re done here. hopefully most of us.

i’ve rekindled a relationship with my father. so there’s the answer to that question from march. even as i’m writing this section i’m still not quite sure what i want to say on this matter. i have procrastinated on this section for a while now (sorry dominique). but i do want to write about it. i should write about it. what i do know about it is that after ten years of no contact i was wrong about how i chose to view the nature of our relationship post my parent’s divorce. but not completely at the same time. it’s weird. i had my reasons that i still stand by to this day. but after ten years of no contact i was certain that if he were to pass away i would be okay. empowered even. looking forward to it if i were being brutally honest with you. i was convinced that my father’s shortcomings were always just going to get the best of him and that was going to be the summary of his life. if he wanted to change he would’ve done so a long time ago. i saw him this month at an important event related to my brother. usually when i see him sparsely for unrelated reasonings, it’s quick, cordial, and i’m out of there. there’s history. but seeing him this time around was stranger than usual. he was stranger than usual. i saw a man who was showing visible signs of wear and tear through the decisions he had made in his life up to this point. decisions pertaining to how one will choose to conduct themselves as a man. a family man. and i’ll leave that at that. he wouldn’t stop talking about mortality. there it was. he looked whatever the balance of disheveled and put together is called. and in what would have be taken as poor judgement at one time in my life i decided to see him on this trip after an invitation was extended. i reminded him of the words i shared with him in writing on may 4th 2023. i told him those words were the key to everything between us and what you will do with that key will be up to you. it’s not going to be easy but necessary once you decide you’re ready to make that decision. and then to my surprise later that night, i received the words from him that i had always wanted to receive from him during my time on this earth. he unlocked the lock. i broke down that night. i will keep the details of those words private. it will be used as my personal ointment to heal. it will take time. rekindling will take time. but i was wrong to cling to my pride and supposed certainty of defining my father’s life and the relationship i had with him for the past ten years. shortcomings and all, i came to the uncomfortable truth that if he were to pass with our unresolved tension and trauma still alive, i would be devastated. i saw the potential future of that outcome in one night. gut check. i had convinced myself more than ten years ago that i couldn’t really live my life until he was off this planet. there was something about the two of us breathing the same air at the same time with our history that just didn’t sit right with me. i was wrong to have naively convince myself of this and to live my life as such. i have half lived on so much in my life because of this subconscious decision. relationships that i wish i had back. routes that i wish i would have pursued further. that burden is now lifted. it still hasn’t been accepted as reality for me yet. it’s going to take time.

last year, a roller coaster that i loved and grew up going on at universal studios orlando closed down permanently. the hollywood rip ride rockit. i was really upset. if you’ve never been to the park or rode it before, the ride concept was that it was a full fledge roller coaster that allowed you to listen to music as you rode. it opened in the late 2000’s and was interjected with a ton of music from umg at the time that some would go on to be y2k classics. as a kid who loved roller coasters and music i was mesmerized that this was even possible to do. through this ride, i was introduced to n.e.r.d. (big), no doubt, and modest mouse (through the secret playlist the ride had), along with artists that i had damn near grew up idolizing like kanye, beastie boys, and daft punk. admittedly, the ride itself kinda sucked outside of the drop and the view overlooking orlando. it broke down a lot and one time i got stuck on the ride before the drop, and after waiting for twenty minutes in what felt like you were going to fall backwards out of your seat (iykyk) we were all escorted off the ride using the stairs on the side. super trippy. as it got more dilapidated over the years it felt like you got out of a fight every time you got off of it. but i loved it. and while i lived in orlando for a brief period of time, going to the pqrks with family and friends to ride rides, hang with girls you just met, and do stupid shit was some of the most fun i’ve ever had growing up. i was talking to a childhood friend recently who later relocated to orlando about what’s coming soon to the parks and eventually we got reminiscent on the times we had when we were jits. times we still make going to the parks today. there isn’t much else to do in orlando outside of the shoddy night life, the beaches on the outskirts, or anything tourist related. i always thought theme parks were cool and held an element of magic to them through suspension of disbelief. especially when i was a kid. we lose that as we get older and you really got to get it where you can somewhere. my grandfather helped build epcot which is what relocated my mother’s family to central florida from jeresy, so it must be in my blood or something. however, it does seem like theme park culture today can be pretty disgusting and self-inflict people into a life of arrested development and peter pan syndrome. carrying over to outside the parks as well. which is sad and unfortunate. there’s no balance in that life. but in and of itself, i think the parks are pretty cool. especially roller coasters and thrill rides. in fact, i honest to god think that amusement parks are the perfect places for a kid to conquer fear in a fun and healthy manner. or anyone for that matter. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve gotten off of rides where kids were petrified beforehand in what looked like an unfathomable behemoth from hell, to absolutely becoming ecstatic that they conquered their fears and really enjoyed their experience. kids don’t understand engineering or what it takes to concoct a roller coaster, they just see what this thing is doing to other human’s bodies from hundreds of feet in the air and it can be overstimulating. they have to take a leap of faith in what they don’t fully understand and trust that they could really enjoy it. i was once that kid as well. a lot of us were. some still are. i smile internally every time i see a child conquer their fears. i see myself.

— jacob