“Oh, monsters are scared,” said Lettie. “That’s why they’re monsters.”

Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Last year, I quit my job.

I put my notice in during March 2021, and my last day ended up being the last day of that June. Others thought I was being uber secretive about moving to a different, but similar place. Though, for some, I told them at face value I was quitting to pursue my dreams. I told my coworkers, “Maybe you’ll see me back in a year.” All the while, my goal would be to never to return. That said, I am incredibly thankful for the place I worked for during the pandemic because I lived a pretty cushy life during that time.

Now, now – I am not a fan of Elon Musk. (I am not the sort of person who dislikes a person just because a person is a billionaire.) However, he is attributed to saying:

Most people will panic to find a charger before their phone dies. But won’t panic to find a plan before their dream dies.

Elon Musk (maybe)

That said, once I had the time to myself I realized I had some obstacles – some ghosts – you could say. Though this blog entry has a happy ending, I promise.

In pop culture and folk tales, ghosts haunt creepy houses at night, appear in old photographs of church picnics, are glimpsed in the rain-lashed beam of a headlight on a country road amid endless fields of corn. In life, they arrive when you are emptying the dryer at ten a.m.

Ann-Marie MacDonald, The Way the Crow Flies

And I found that ghosts are rather difficult to find and exterminate when they had an opportunity to enter to every routine one would ever have in daily life. The plans of attack included, but were not limited to:

• Talk about them as much as possible – eventually the ghosts will get boring.
• Create as many new memories as possible to shuffle the ghosts as far back as possible. Like cards. (And that’s a theory of mine for another entry in the form of an analogous fairy tale I made The Two Brothers.) I was going to do that in the form of traveling to very different places of the world. That was going strong until… 2020.
• Do things that would be likely to contrive a engage a fear response within me. [You see, I was feeling quite adrenaline-like.] I reasoned that any fear responses that I had programmed within me would then be paired with those new contrived experiences, and once I disengaged from those experiences then BAM – all of the adrenaline responses are done.
  That was one of the main reasons I went to Syria back in 2019 – I thought, “While there I’ll either be afraid or I will have a lot of fun and have good memories. A Win-Win.” Well, I ended up having a lot of fun and great memories. That said, that trip was a bit of a calculated risk: I had read enough information suggesting that it was reasonably safe, so going there was likely to be safe despite current stereotypes.

• However, I have found plenty of use out of watching gameplay of horror games on YouTube. Me: How to combat horrible memories? Watch a horror movie or game! Then your repetitious thoughts will leech onto that for a while.
• I also practice gratefulness and visualizing my dream future: I am thankful that Coco is healthy, I am thankful that Austin is loving, I am thankful that Howl is playing, I am grateful that I get to sleep whenever I want, I am grateful for every moment that Uncle Iroh squeaks at me…
• Actively pursuing my dreams. Big dreams. Little dreams. That’s what life is for, isn’t it? There is no time to be “realistic” in life. Though, I think, most people need to do more hyper-introspection over what their dreams truly are. For example, do you actually want to be the richest person in the world or do you want the results that kind of come with that? (That said, it is entirely possible that within introspection one still wants to be the richest person in the world as a true dream that you know will be part of making you happy. Because, perhaps to you, it is more about simply accomplishing that goal to know that you’re the kind of person that can become the richest person in the world.) My point is, I don’t think a lot of people think about their dreams and why they have them.

One of my dreams has been to fly (as in, be a pilot). I have been meaning to take lessons since I was 17. And for one reason or another… other things have taken precedent. And unfortunately, some of things that took precedence were not part of my dreams. I realized that one day. However, having entered the pilot community as a student, I have found that a decent amount of pilots aim to be airline pilots. I think a lot look at me with incredulity when I say that I have never seriously thought about doing that because I think it would incredibly impede my freedom. My only reason to become an airline pilot, an international airline pilot, would be to travel the world. I can completely do that now.

• Cull anything that could potentially the current peace I feel. I’ve learned and cemented the lessons from way back when I was a teenager by deviating from this I suppose.
• That said, further help in my ghost busting quest came from an unlikely source:

You see, even when stories are fiction, stories can help during dark times when it’s difficult to be optimistic. I originally started watching Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure several years ago, but then stopped because I became so demoralized by the villain. Even with the fantastical elements within the series, the villain’s personality is rather realistic, and it hit a bit too close to home. I am not sure why or how I decided to get back into the series, but I did this last year and I am so glad I did. Spoiler: the villain is finally beaten and it is ultra satisfying. I suppose I needed to see that sort of villain beaten, and me spoiling that does not ruin the series at all. (I know because I had to look it up prior to resuming the series.)

I suppose too, it also helped that some of the dialogue from within the show is rather mentally intrusive. Whenever a ghost would pop up in my life, Jojo dialogue would be in my head and scream louder than the ghost.

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

Neil Gaiman, Coraline