A Lonely Road to Nowhere: Prologue

I sat alone in my car in an empty parking lot on a Sunday afternoon feeling like I had been duped.

A year previously, in 2018, I had completed a graduate program from one of the top universities in the world. Yet, there I was, 25 years old, living with my parents and earning pennies on a dollar selling footwear at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

I was long past the point when working part-time in retail was a desirable means to scratch out a living. But I didn’t have any clue what my next step was supposed to be.

Holding a job, any job, was my way of hiding from the reality of my own situation. I was caught up in dollar signs and fiscal logic rather than emotional drive and ambition.

Leaning too far one way would eventually turn me into Ebenezer Scrooge. Leaning too far the other way would see me broke again within minutes.

I couldn’t imagine a world where I could have both.

I could either be rich and miserable or poor and content. Being rich and content were oxymorons.

So, I ended up being poor and miserable. The worst of both worlds.

I told myself I was being responsible and paying off the student loans from my graduate program. But in reality, I was becoming a nihilist who believed that if nothing really mattered, then I ought not waste my time manufacturing a life of meaning at all.

I was asking myself a lot of questions at that time. But there was one that rose above all the rest: When had life stopped feeling like it was worth living?

I wanted to disappear, to fly away, to cease being.

I had no intention of fading into nonexistence, though. I intended to crash into it.

A Parking Lot View

As I sat in that empty parking lot, all I had was my car and a stretch of pavement with a solid brick building on the other side of it.

There wasn’t any detailed plan. There was no note. If I was going to do it, then I figured I ought to just do it.

That was my logic, anyway. Nike logic. I was a shoe salesman, after all.

My plan was simple: Drive my car into the brick building. Quick and easy.

I unbuckled my seat belt, threw my car in drive, and stomped on the gas pedal.

I wasn’t in a supercar by any stretch – I drove a used Honda Pilot – but I figured I ought to build up enough speed over the length of the parking lot that I’d be able to inflict some damage.

So, I sped towards the brick wall that so closely resembled my life at that time.

At one hundred yards out, the gas pedal hit the floor.

At seventy-five, I gripped the steering wheel tight in my hands.

At fifty, I lasered in on the wall.

At twenty-five, each brick was coming into focus.

At ten, a shout escaped my mouth from somewhere deep inside my chest.

And then I swerved hard to the right, avoiding the building and coming to a stop in the parking lot.

My heart was knocking on the inside of my chest. My palms were sweaty as I gripped the steering wheel. My knuckles were bright white.

I’d managed to have a biological response. I’d managed to feel something.

The whites of my knuckles faded back to their normal pigmentation. I sat there in silence, listening to the hum of my car engine.

I flipped on the radio.

I’d heard stories of people contemplating self-harm who turned on the radio and found the words they needed to keep going. I listened for a few moments, and then shut the radio back off.

No words of hope today.

Sometime later - maybe a couple minutes, maybe close to an hour - I put my car back in drive and swung around to the opposite end of the parking lot again. The wall of brick still beckoned me.

And I decided I would keep answering the call until it stopped.

I kicked hard on the gas pedal and sped toward the wall again.

Goodbye meaningless troubles. Hello eternal bliss.

One hundred. Seventy-five. Fifty. Twenty-five. Ten.

For the second time, I swerved hard to the right. My heart was still knocking inside my chest. But not as hard as it had the first time around. My newfound drug was already wearing off.

What a coward, a voice inside me said. And because it was the only voice I had ever listened to, I decided to agree with it.

So, I swung my car around the parking lot for Round Three.