Tex and the City is a column written by Amanda Foust chronicling her experiences with Austin rave culture, concert life, and college fraternity experiences at the University of Texas at Austin. These are writings to preserve the present moment in ether and not have it run away from my memory. These are writings that keep my recollection alive, and not let it slowly decay. I’m so scared of rotting and getting old; but, writings stay young forever.
I have found that anticipation is a fierce beast to slay. I would waiver for years on how to handle it. Years ago, I used to hate being incredibly excited for something, because always and without fail, the event would not live up to my expectations. I found that, as a child, setting my clothes out the night before a compelling day was better than the actual day itself.
For years, I had lived for anticipation. I was convinced happiness was not real, and was merely a facade of what people expected life to be like. It was a shell of what anticipation was trying to make itself to be. I imagiend happiness was what occurred when anticipation turned out to fulfill its prophecy. Instead of feeling elated after a particularly interesting day, I instead felt dull with despair – thinking about all the chances I could’ve taken, all the opportunities I missed to fulfill the day of my dreams like I wanted, all the miscalculated steps, all the bare ugly silences I could have filled with beauty.
I felt like the painter of my own life, but I used black, white and grey only. The only time I saw color was during the process of anticipation. During waiting, I cannot be disappointed, but only ecstatic at all the possibilities of what could happen that day. During waiting, I am safe from regret; I build a shelter in my mind to protect myself from the external world and how unpredictable it was. Everything I wanted could come true, whether I was dreaming, daydreaming, or simply thinking. My mind was a sanctuary.
Slowly, my mind turned into something I didn’t want to interact with. It became something I was terrified of – more than the real world, more than the unpredictability of all. My mind turned into something that controlled me, not something that I controlled. I had started to be puppeteered by the unexpectedness of life. I found I wanted to control fate much more than I was able to. It felt like the apocalypse, but nothing had changed, which is actually more terrifying. I just realized how vulnerable we truly are at all times to determinism. My optimism for life was slowly killing me, when everyone had made it seem like that was the answer.
I had become depressed at my life being full of continuous disappointments. Real life felt like something that would never be better than my mind. Expectations were picking me apart slowly, flaying me bit by bit, cutting the meat off of me gradually like a stick of gyro meat. I would get smaller and smaller, trying to hide in the crooks of life, trying to not be caught. If I was caught, I’d have to live in the real world. I’d have to confront the fact that life is not built in the way I want it to be.
Just like a child who hasn’t learned their lesson, I was incredibly excited for the Pearl Street Co-Op party, as most of my friends were going. JD was going, Hannah was coming back in town, I was seeing Paola after a good amount of time, and my frat brothers, Jake, Devansh, Alan, Angus and Yanni were coming along too. I was supposed to shoot Smothered, Grocery Bag and Handmade Bangs. I had made my bed the night before just so I could lie in it properly when it was time to go. In other words, I created the biggest expectation I could fathom. And I would not accept this night going any less memorable than any other party. I knew I wanted to write about this party for Tex and the City. I wanted it to mean something.
Devansh and I started pregaming at 5pm, which of course, was not one of our best ideas, as the party only started at 8pm and went until 2am. If I had actually thought ahead and didn’t let my expectations think for me, I would’ve noticed that that would’ve been a bad idea.
I dressed normally, then I saw all my friends dress to theme, so I went back home and changed. I wore a tie, a black tank top, a plaid skirt, a beaded belt, and some classic eye gems. I felt great and very indie sleazy, given the theme was Jersey Shore vs. Indie Sleaze. But, something I’ve noticed, when you plan your outfit this hard, it usually gets rendered useless. I find that the hours spent ruminating the possible options in your head magically float away and lose meaning once the outfit is chosen. It feels like time wasted.
We got to the party, I met all of my friends that were there, but something inside me made it not feel like enough. All the stimuli, all the distractions, they couldn’t fulfill the hole inside of my stomach.
Soon enough, the words I spoke started to press and shove down on me, like a bully. Just like life had not become enough for me, neither had words. Any communication I had with someone felt disingenuous and not real. I had to get out. Most of my friends had already left due to the environment in the air being wrong, just as I was feeling, but Hannah and Paola were still there.
I decided to go back to my apartment to go get some food. I assumed I was just hungry and that’s why I wasn’t acting like myself. But you must realize, that this is who you truly are, when you wrestle with your words like an adversary. This is when your barriers come down. This is when words feel like pulling a Twizzler out of a package, them sticking to each other and eventually one being ripped. This is when life laughs in your face, tells you you’re not as capable as you thought you were. Language becomes the hardest conceivable thing.
You realize you are powerless to the anticipation.
My roommates were throwing a huge party in my apartment, but I ignored it all and had some drunk guys help me make mac and cheese. I headed over to the party and brought it with me, and Paola, Hannah and I enjoyed some food during the concert. That was probably the best part of the whole night.
It’s strange, isn’t it? I was excited for the other friends who were coming, and for the bands, but I was mostly happy about mac and cheese, something I spontaneously decided to do. I argue about free will and determinism, and how anticipation makes me feel empty, but was I not free to change my night? Was I not free enough?
The thing I was excited for ended up being my disappointment, and the thing I hadn’t even considered at the beginning became my excitement. I guess what I learned is that you can’t write something in your head before you experience it. I had written my ending before I had even started my beginning. I wanted my experience to go a certain way, and when it didn’t, I felt personally attacked.
I used to be very stoic, and I would “negatively visualize” all the time, meaning I would imagine the worst case scenario of a situation, be okay with it, and then move on. This alleviates disappointment. But what it also alleviates is excitement. Because you are so detached to the outcome of anything, you cannot become attached to anything either.
I realized I wouldn’t want it any other way. I would rather there be bits of color rather than no color at all. But, I wouldn’t inflate life to be some beautiful thing, because it’s not. It never gives you what you want. Life is not either full of color or devoid of it. Sometimes the clouds hide the sun and it becomes shady, then a minute from then, the sun is uncovered and the ground is lightened again.
Tex and the City is not something to inflate my current life. It is not an embellishment or an ornament. It is not something to make me look good or cool. It is supposed to show the underbellies and sideboobs of society. It is supposed to show the nights when everything works out right – and the nights when you seem to not be in the mood and it’s just not the night. Sometimes you step out of the dirt and you walk, other times, life buries you deeper. Sometimes you win, sometimes life wins.
The human condition is not about being perfect all the time. In fact, it is about those nights that don’t seem to feel quite right. You can’t put your finger on why. And, sometimes, there lacks a reason why at all. The human condition is about feeling wrong at times. The human condition is about feeling broken, and it’s also about the moments when light seeps into the cracks. It’s about the moments when a hug feels like a glue gun. It’s about the moments when a phrase you say in public feels like a dart that hits the wall instead of the target. It’s about the moments when you have everything going on in your mind and yet, nothing to say. It’s about the moments when you want time to desperately stop, but it doesn’t; it just goes on and on and on, like a filibuster without an interruption.
The human condition is not revolutionary or beautiful or something to gawk at. It’s barely something to read about. I wonder why all my friends love escapist literature and cinematography so much; it’s because focusing on the human condition all the time is too draining. You must focus on other worlds and nonhumans to make up for the things we experience on this planet. Without our distractions from reality, we couldn’t live in reality.
I don’t want to write something gorgeous. I want to speak the words everyone is too afraid to say. Tex and the City is not going to be about making people jealous or showing off all the things I go to – it is a place for me to be honest about living in Austin. And sometimes, the parties are not as good as they look on social media. I didn’t want to write this week, because I didn’t want to lie and say I had a fantastic time, but I think more people would benefit from my honesty. I, in all sincerity, just want people to feel less crazy.
You are not crazy for wanting to leave a party early. All that it means is that you are human, and that is a horrible and a fantastic thing, all at once. It’s simultaneously something to cry over and something to stare in awe at.
A party is an opportunity. If you don’t take it, it doesn’t mean it’s a missed opportunity. It means it wasn’t an experience that was meant for your life. Sometimes, and only sometimes, moments are not meant for us and they are not ours to steal. They must be given to us and in turn, we must accept them.
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