There was no more panic left in my little 21-year-old heart. It did all the work it could in that department. I was now resigned to my circumstance. My keys were officially gone, lost into the ether – car, house, even my Kroger card. The entirety of Georgia State University’s production of Hay Fever spent the last hour helping me look for them but to no avail. We looked under every seat in the house. We combed through the backstage, lighting booth, and dressing rooms. Those keys refused to be located. Finally, I threw in the towel. Fortunately for me, one of the assistant stage managers lived near my house and offered to drive me home. It was an offer that I accepted as gracefully as I could without crying. I was embarrassed, pissed off, frustrated, but mostly, I was tired.

As we pulled out of M-Deck parking garage, my body melted into the passenger seat. I waved goodbye to my beloved Gertrude, a ’97 blue-green Ford Taurus. Guilt washed over me as she sat there, all alone, in a corner of the garage. I had no key to operate her. I prayed she would still be there in the morning and that campus security wouldn’t get a wild hair to tow her. 

My mom had agreed to drive me to campus in the morning. That was a comfort. Nothing like your mom driving your grown ass to college. That would solve my morning commute but only for a day. What happens if I get to the theatre and still cannot find Gertrude’s only key? What exactly would I do if I couldn’t find my keys in the light of day? I tried not to think about it as Sara dropped me off at my parents’ front door. I was in a daze as I thanked her and walked up the driveway. 

It was late and my parents were already asleep. Mom told me she’d leave a spare house key under the mat. Side note: if ever I want to start breaking into houses, I’ll just check under all the mats. Once inside, I crawled upstairs, not bothering to turn on the lights. I knew my way around. After taking the contacts out of my eyes, I fell into bed, fast asleep before my head even hit the pillow. My final thought was, “I have never been this tired in my life.”

To say that I was burning the candle at both ends that semester would be an understatement. My candle was basically inside an incinerator. It was my junior year of college. At that point, I was taking 18 credit hours, the maximum allowed by the university. One of those was a studio class, which meant lots and lots of hours outside of class working on class. I worked 15-20 hours a week at the university bookstore (three cheers for retail!) just to be able to afford Gertrude’s gas and the occasional meal. My early morning shifts at the bookstore would start at 7 in the morning, which was excruciating at the time but is laughable now given my current coaching schedule. Rehearsals for the mainstage show were nearly every night. Most of my days were 12-18 hours long. 

How I survived this period of time is beyond me. Maybe it was my youth, or the sheer force of forward momentum, or the excessive weed and alcohol I consumed on the weekends to get me through the week, but somehow, I got through it. I was chronically sleep-deprived and unwell. My mental health, I’m certain, was questionable at best. My decision-making was cloudy on a good day, although that may just have been the result of being 21. I still question how I got through college without killing something, someone, or myself. 

This isn’t to say that college was all work and no fun (remember that whole weed and alcohol thing?). I had loads of fun. Socializing with my friends, people in the theatre program who were like family, was a big priority. We did so much dumb shit together. Mostly we’d hang out at someone’s apartment, drive around looking for tacos, order pizza, smoke cigarettes on the balcony, and talk about life as though we knew anything about it yet. We were young, we were artists, we were stuck in a daydream. I wouldn’t trade a single moment of that. 

Nevertheless, I was in the incinerator, and I was in deep. It is the busiest and most work-laden period of my life. I’ve had other moments where I was certainly more stressed but that year of college, really all of college, was the hardest I’ve ever worked. 

And you know what? 

It really sucked. 

Again, I wouldn’t change anything about my college experience. However, the fruits of that time were not a direct result of the amount of work I did or how hard I did that work. The fruits came from the people I surrounded myself with and the creative endeavors we took on together. I was broke and unhealthy, yet I was in a state of creative exploration. It may be a cliché but the vast majority of my growth, and therefore education, happened outside of the classroom. 

As a culture, we worship at the altar of hard work. Collectively we have decided that success means one must take vows, a deep devotion to labor. Our memes and quotes and CEOs and business tycoons and consultants and influencers and podcasts tell us one thing: work your ass off and you’ll get the things you want in life. We’re not just obsessed with working; we’re obsessed with overworking. We applaud people who are drowning in 90-hour work weeks, on call 24/7. We marvel at sleep deprivation, as though it’s something to wear proudly like a badge of honor. For some reason, we’ve decided that the incinerator is not only a good place to be but is the only place to achieve greatness. 

I continue to fall victim to the allure of this message though it’s gotten better over the years. However, I feel guilty sometimes when it feels like I’m not busy enough, doing enough, working enough, accruing enough. Recently I sent a funny text to a friend about my “life of leisure” and he didn’t disagree. I was shame-washed that I said it in the first place and even more shame-washed that there was no argument. Surely, I’m a lame piece of human garbage because I’m not melting in the incinerator. Clearly, I won’t get the things I want in life because I’m not mentally and physically depleted. Obviously, I’m a waste of space because I don’t bust ass as much as my successful friends do.

All of this is, of course, ludicrous, silly, and false. 

In addition to making a living, I carve out time to read, think, be still, sleep, eat well, exercise, socialize, and be with family. At this juncture of my life, those are far bigger priorities than selling my energies to build someone else’s dream, hustling the pavement, making money, and buying into the “Incinerator Myth.” True wellness – mental, physical, emotional, spiritual – get top billing for me. Some people may see that as laziness or a cop-out or millennial dribble, an argument I won’t bother to fight. All I know is that at the end of my life, in my very last days, I will not think to myself, “Boy, I should have worked harder.” 

The great irony of all this, the cosmic joke, is that resisting the Incinerator Myth so firmly has led me to my most productive self. This last year, out of a decade, has been my most creatively fulfilling. I’ve written more words in the last 8 months than my entire life combined. Lots of essays, a book with a partner, and a one-man show. I’m not entirely sure why this is but I think it’s because I’ve made space for ideas to brew and grow and breathe. There’s room and energy available in my schedule and mind and body to ignite these ideas. That big, giant, scary, potential opportunity (the one I wrote about last week) is still a possibility and it sits on the table. The only reason it’s there is because I wasn’t too busy being busy to see that door opening. I had a clarity that can’t exist inside the incinerator. 

I can’t pretend to know what’s best for someone else. If the incinerator feels good to you, then, by all means, dive in head first. All I know is that the incinerator isn’t where I thrive. Not only is it no fun, it’s dangerous. Maybe the universe was preventing me from getting into a car that night I lost my keys in the theatre. Perhaps I was so fried and at wits end, that getting behind the wheel of Gertrude would have been the literal death of me. 

The next day I head to one of the green rooms at the theatre department after checking on Gertrude (she was fine, btw). I was going to heat up some leftover coffee in one of the microwaves before taking a final stab at finding my keys. I was resolved to call AAA in the event that I couldn’t find them. That may not have been the right answer but at least it had some semblance of a plan. 

The moment I walk into the green room I burst into cackling, cathartic laughter. Sitting right on top of the microwave were my keys. They lay there, alone and isolated, as though a spotlight was pointed right at them. They appeared completely and wholly unaware of the dramatics they incited the previous night. Suddenly it all came whirling back to me. I went into the green room on my way to rehearsal the night before so I could heat up my dinner (that microwave saw a lot of action). Just like a movie, I saw myself, scene by scene, walking into the green room, putting the keys in my hand down on top of the microwave, putting my dinner inside, and then laying down on the couch while it heated up.

I put the keys back in my pocket and sent up a little prayer of thanksgiving to the key gods. All day long I laughed about that. The incinerator might be slowly killing me, I thought, but at least it had a sense of humor. 

Check out this week’s photo contributors 

Anugrah Lohiya

Juan Pablo