[ja]cobdavis

It may not come as a big surprise to many. I’m an asshole. Well, I can be. For some reason a previous co-worker and growing dear friend of mine brings it out in horrible, crude ways. The flood gates open in my brain where I keep my brash thoughts locked away. Normally it splashes the shoes, but neither of us end up hating each other. A verbal push and shove, who can go farther.

I ended up a massive, cavernous billowy anus one afternoon.

“When do you give up Travis?”

“What man?” His smile broke at its edges. His eyes lock mine the way a brother locks on when it’s grown-up time.

“Ya know, like when you give up the dream being an actor.” A desperate scoff floats out.

I know he was boiling, a ‘huh’ puffed out – he couldn’t process it. He walked away, saying how I was a dick or such an asshole over his shoulder.

Why was I suddenly so cruel? I had seen him in a show that was well done. He was active and always doing work. Going back now, I wanted to know for myself. When was it okay for me to give up my dream. When do I know I didn’t make it. I needed to know where someone else’s unbroken finish line was strung.

We’ve only gotten better friends, but that question digs at me. A slow screwing into my subconscious, I’m reminded every time I see my accordion binder full of old college work,when I was in love with a dream. Now it’s a cloud, looming that I’m no closer than before and I’m nearly this close to thirty. Travis is happy as a clam working on Million Dollar Quartet as a relief to some of the headliners. I write about food, and get paid to do so.

I guess we both answered that question.

A simple question. 11 years ago (at least), it was a passing question from a dental assistant before the father of a long-time acquaintance and my dentist poked around in my mouth. I had never thought about it before. Never once had I wrenched my jaw open after a night’s sleep and rubbed my bulging jaw muscle. Never once had I noticed the fluffy pain resonating around my teeth like a pillow well into the late-morning.

“No, I don’t think so.”

Of course I was wrong. My mother grinds her teeth. My sister does, although both mostly show whilst enraged – it conveys exactly how their stress shows itself, manifesting in a crunching not unlike that of tectonic plates, mountains falling into valleys and the hills smoothing themselves out with time. How did I not know I was along for the ride? I’d been taking psychostimulants since the middle of third grade; slow release, low dose – I’d had it all. When coming down from a long day of Ritalin you move from one being to another. While on it, you are this other person, so when I was asked if I had ground my teeth – I didn’t know it wasn’t ever a focus of mine. As soon as the pretty smock-clad woman left the room, it all came flooding in. I’d been grinding my teeth for so long I didn’t know it was irregular – all the while brooding over it, I caught myself milling my enamel.

And so began my internal fight on was or wasn’t I grinding my teeth. As I aged it came and went. My stress displayed itself in other ways: throwing up, stomach pains, obsessive tongue-to-tooth rubbing, and the like. But now it’s back. In a time when I have to show restraint, where I have to go from happy and sad just as fast as my almost-toddler son, it’s back. After naps, my molars are locking, my teeth feel as though they are being pushed into their Silly Puddy-feeling gum-bed. I’d never had a dentist comment after, but – strangely – I’ve wanted them to, to confirm my insanity. I want them to notice the smooth topped molars my ever-searching tongue does. During my waking hours I try to keep my jar apart – in fear of unknowingly grinding away and for relief of last-nights clinch-fest or the inevitable bear-trap wrenching when my son climbs on his toy chest one more damn time.

I still come back to that question.

Where I’m laid back in the dense pleather foam chair, floating three feet from the floor with a woman’s hands in my mouth asking me if I grind my teeth. I think of that break. That ever-lasting dead air between her question and my stuttered answer: did I?

This is the first of a series of reflections where I pick up a piece of my brain and follow the string back to where either I or someone else effects either I or someone else.

Twenty-something is an impasse of immaturity and adulthood. There is a good reason people say “early twenties” or “in their thirties.” There is a good reason categorically, we’re placed between “early,” “something,” and “late.”

At each decade of our lives we’re stuck in this ‘get old’ or ‘seem too old.’ It’s the same reason a fifteen year old hates the world as much as a twenty-five year old wants a fancy things as much as thirty-five year old wants to be recognized at work as much as a forty-five year old faces their grim future. We aren’t who we were five years ago, but we don’t want to be who we will be in five years, so we end up conflicted. It’s the same reason a thirty year old at a college house party full of undergrads is awkward  or a new-hire never truly looks comfortable in their new dress slacks.

But twenty is awkward. Filled with messy childbirths, clumsy marriages, and elbowing at the edges of self-sufficiency. Are we actually adults or are we just playing one in real life? This is what grown-ups do right?

The older I get the more convoluted the insult “just grow up” seems.