iii: an age of indecision

Pat, 71, Wellington, New Zealand

When travelling, one requires a hub. A place to put the sentimental items you cannot bear to part with permanently. Having pieces of home scattered around the globe is less than ideal. While Home is where the heart is glamorizes the travelling life, it assumes the traveler knows where home is, which is not always the case. Where do you keep your books when you leave? Your art? Your jacket collection? They belong in the hub; the place you will always return to.

There’s a pub next to my hub.

Giving any credit to the british empire makes my dark skin crawl, but pub culture is one of the greatest subcultures to experience as an adult. A sense of community that consists of its visitors, designated frequent flyers and the indecisive in-between.

In airports, the time spent waiting is often plugged into an audio adventure or a literary one. Conversations with strangers are rare, if not outright suspicious. In some countries, you will be put on a watchlist for starting conversations at an airport. Pubs are different. People are waiting, but not in silence. A conversation over a pint is not just expected—it’s inevitable. Here, headphones signal you don’t belong. Being alone at a pub is acceptable for those waiting for something. Or someone.

Pat, not Patrick, is a local at the pub. You can tell by the way his eyes scan the room. They observe rather than search, as if the answer to whatever he’s waiting for might walk through the door. Locals of pubs are part of the furniture and are easier to spot than the changing of the seasonal decor. When I first came across Pat, I wondered if his wife was in the restroom and left him at the bar. Perhaps his son was late to grab a drink with his father on a Friday night. Does he own the whole building and this is his solitude? It’s always been my job to find out.

He tells me stories three or four times before pausing, searching my face, and asking if he has told this one before. If I tell him yes, I fear the risk of pulling him into frustration, forcing him to sit with the unsettling reality that his memory is slipping—perhaps for the third time this week, though he wouldn’t know. Conscious that his cognitive decline is limiting his ability to be social. The next moments would be a silent battle with the reality of his fading memory, fought beside a stranger.

If I tell him no, I offer a small lie, a kindness meant to protect his feelings. How bad could it be? Could I display a level of patience in my 20s to safeguard the joy of man in his 70s? Or would honesty, given as a sign of respect, feel like the greater kindness.

What would you choose?

Pat is telling his story of the West Indies and how he used to be a sailor back when the money was in the sea. Bananas in crates and women with colorful headscarves are always the anchor of this story. Caribbean weather and the smiles of people are listed in his reasons that the story brings great regret; longing for a return to Jamaica. The story is coming to a close when he mentions the oranges that he collected on the port of Bridgetown, Barbados. He wraps it up each time with a “That was like back then ya know?” or “But that was a long time ago?”. I don’t know why this particular checkpoint in his story causes him to close the chapter. Why the oranges are where nostalgia folds into finality, but you could set a clock to it.

Tonight, though, the ending shifts. The difference in this recital will be it’s ending. I reserve this question— one that I have based this entire series around — for people I meet once and do not plan on meeting again, unless fate finds it fit. The type of encounters that leave no room for follow-up, only reflection. Pat asks for my name each time we meet. Pat never recalls which Caribbean island I am actually from. I never blame him for it nor do I expect anything more than the time he gives me. But tonight, I break my rule to know — if he could speak to the version of himself at 27, loading crates of oranges and bananas onto a ship — what would he say?

As if gone off script, the question brought him to a complete halt. At first, he stumbled over his answer and promised me that he wouldn’t change anything in his life. He pushes off the question with his answer, getting back to his beer. Not one breath was taken after that sip as he broke out of character. His eyes fixed on me as if a dying wish was being decreed. If you could hear the certainty in which he delivered his answer, you would never sense a hint cognitive decline or memory loss. You would sense the passion of a man desperately trying to deliver a message to the past. Grabbing my arm and looking me into my soul, Pat says:

Make decisions now. You’ve got to have something you want to do with your life, make decisions towards that. Make more decisions. Stop letting life go on and being okay with whatever happens. And if you can avoid it, avoid grief as much as possible.

Lift off. We are officially off script. It’s taken four different meetings, in this pub, to get Pat to skip a beat. Not the fourth rendition of a story. The jokes that would usually fill the silence were no longer on the agenda. This is the shit we attend university for, but lectures cannot teach you. Deep inside the mind without being in the pants. I crave pillow talk with a stranger at a pub. Existential conversation in the line of a checkout. We have surpassed small talk and are on the road to something memorable. Whether Pat was waiting for this question, or if it had been a tough day upon, he appreciated being asked anything.

Giving his advice the stage it deserves—let’s break it down.

Pat:

At 71, Pat gave me his life in a few sentences—more than any of his stories have ever told me about him. The ethical conundrum I faced at the start of that evening, asking a man with memory issues a question I’ve reserved for one-timers. I made the decision to ask Pat the question. His answer confirmed to me that I’m on the right path. Make the decision and deal with the consequences; because dealing with them is one of the many privileges of doing something. I haven’t seen him since this conversation and I’ve constantly wondered if his health still allows him to drink at the pub—whether it would ever stop him.

Grief:

To grieve is to have loved. I have experienced grief when losing people, projects, places; all in which I have loved. Memorable moments with people can be cherished but are not grieved. The emotional reaction to the non-physical is something romantic of life. Crying at the absence of something that once was and will exist without you. Pretty peak tbh.

When Pat said, avoid grief at all costs, the question I have been asking myself is if he is inferring to limit my love. Should I focus on not loving at all costs so that I’ll never feel heartbreak? Should I be more wise in choosing the things I attach myself to?

In understanding this, we can use my life as an example to learn from. When I was 17, I moved to a city to get a degree and work a fulltime job. The checklist was very small because the mission was to get educated and gain experience so that I could travel the world. Ten years later, I am crying the back of a car on the way to the airport to leave it. Why am I bawling my eyes out over a city that I came to milk, squeeze dry? There was no intention to make connection when I first arrived. I sat there as a 27 year old; in love. In love with the street names, sidewalk chalk and the residents that lived in between. Instead of being thankful for the opportunity to love, I loathed in myself. How stupid of you to fall in love with a city.

If loving anything means grieving it in the future, how should I choose?

Decisions:

I come from an age of indecision. A generation that has thought of 101 ways this scenario could play out—while its playing out. Overthinking. Anxious explanations of texts I’ve sent and calls I’ve never answered. Stood frozen, staring at an unknown number above the “slide to answer”, waiting until it rings off. No genuine reason to ignore it, just the weight of choice pressing down on me. Indecisiveness has evolved from a simple trait into something resembling a lifestyle in recent years. It has festered into something horrendous in my life, only recognized by meeting a man for the first time in his memory, but the fourth time in mine.

Indecision is the tip of an iceberg that puts me in a state of paralysis. Whether I should tell you or not, whether I should move or stay still—I will lose sleep over the answer. I forget that time continues forward, with or without my certainty. Forgetting that time continues on. While thinking of the most ethical, politically correct, sustainable and least xenophobic way to tell you something, I end up saying nothing at all. And in doing so, I let people down in the meantime.

Before meeting Pat, I believed that there were right and wrong decisions. I thought my life had paths that were clearly marked, waiting to be walked down. That was a mindset that comes from control—an illusion that we can control every outcome. I wasn’t wrong, I was naïve.

We must let go of the need to make the right decision.

Instead, choose a path and make it right. For as long as I can remember, I’ve found comfort in being a spectator—a pedestrian. Watching trains come and go without ever committing to one. Standing at the station, making quiet assumptions about the choices other people have made. She got on this train—I bet she doesn’t really want to. He took this line, it probably smells in there. Passing judgement on everyone that made a decision, everyone that chose a path, was fueled by my fear of indecision. Years pass, and I remain frozen at the platform, watching as everyone else moves forward, carving their own paths. Maybe their path wasn’t the right one to me, but they’ve moved. They’ve made headway, away from me. Eventually, I see myself alone at the station, taking the last train.

That last train is inevitable. You will reach a point where there are no more trains to assess, no more choices to weigh. The cold realisation that hesitation is its own decision—a slow surrender to inaction.

You chose comfort over effort and the spoils are over. The tracks were never meant to wait for you. Movement is the only currency time respects. The only way forward is to step on board, do something, uncertain yet committed.

Trust that wherever you arrive, you’ll make it right.