I live in a loop, blessedly, if not blissfully. I could draw a map if I wanted, one with gps precision. One step out of my apartment and I’m a minute walk to the beach and a 4.6 mile drive to the casino. Most days these are the only places I go. Sleep, wake up, walk on beach, drive to casino, play poker, make money to pay bills, drive home, watch a soccer game or movie, feed my cats, sleep again. Repeat, repeat, repeat. With Door Dash and Amazon I don’t even have to leave the house to shop. Ah, my beautiful loop. The reason for my loop? Well, I’m sure there are clinical reasons but my own reason is to remove all drama from my life. When I interact with people, there are problems. 90% of everything I have ever said or done has been stupid, cruel, pathetic, or insane. My loop keeps the talking and the doing to a minimum. If it weren’t for losing all my money and my mind, I would describe the pandemic as edenic, “trapped” in the warm cozy center of my world. During the shut down I once managed to not speak to another human being for eleven days, a personal record.
Sure, there is the pharmacy, my dentist’s office, my psychiatrist’s office, the grocery store, and a few other places I go with minimal frequency. But these are part of the loop, the outer loop, places I’ve been before. Adventure beyond these 4.6 miles? Well, every year there is cross-country trek to visit my parents and in the summer, a 311 mile drive to Las Vegas to torch my hard earned money playing in the World Series of Poker. Can’t really call them adventures, parts of the motion machine.
Occasionally I marvel at my loop building. My loop built, not by circumstance, but by my ample engineering skills and self-awareness. I can’t even imagine the anxiety and chaos if my loop were destroyed. Because I can’t imagine it, I’ve made the sensible decision, and don’t even try.