I Might Make It

I have been sitting in my car for hours. I don’t really know how many hours. I left my watch and my phone at the house along with my wallet and all my cash but I did not forget my gun. I made sure I had my gun and I didn’t care to look at the clock. “You Can Make it if You Try” is playing over the speakers in my car. I hate that song. Using lines like “push a little harder” and “dig a little deeper”, the song heavily implies that if you try your hardest you will be able to accomplish whatever you want. 

A powerful lie. 

The listeners seem to forget that the title of the song says that you can make it if you try. The title of the song is not telling its listeners that they will make it if they try. The difference between the two words is astronomical and no one seems to notice. Saying someone can make it is the equivalent of saying they might make it. Yet, the song implies that if they try to make it, they will. 

I’ve been trying to make it for longer than I deserve. Most people say that line without any truth behind the words at all. They say they’ve been trying but, most of the time, they have been doing only the bare minimum. Doing the bare minimum and nothing else is not trying. I have been pushing myself to my limit every single day for decades. I put more dedication and effort and time and thought into my work than anyone I know and I have not made it.  

I put having a family on hold for my career and have never settled down. I have friends that I would consider close and there are people in my life that I love and I recognize that. Sure, I have slowly progressed through the company. My degree that I’m still paying for has helped some and I definitely make more than I did when I started. I planned to move through the company with more ferocity and passion than anyone before and I still have those attributes. I wanted to make Senior Vice President by the time I was thirty-five, but that birthday came and passed. According to that ridiculous song, I should have made it. I will make it if I try, right? 

Wrong. I can make it if I try. 

The song is brainlessly optimistic. The notion that hard work is all it takes to be successful or to make it is the thinking of fools. Hard work will help sway the odds in your favor, but it does not mean you will make it. The song and its listeners who preach its message forget about an aspect of life that is always prevalent. Some people call it luck, some people call it fate, some people call it destiny, but I call it uncertainty. It is always lurking around every corner even the ones you’ve turned hundreds of times. I wake up early, I try my hardest, I stay healthy, but I have not made it. 

My head has been hanging downwards with my chin resting against my chest for a long time. I’m in the driver’s seat of my extremely generic sedan. The air conditioning in my car is broken, so the windows are rolled down. My hands are rested on my knees with my palms facing upwards. There is nothing in my left hand. The gun is in my right hand. My fingers are not clenched around it, but I can still feel the weight. I had thought about buying one for a while and I finally bought it yesterday. 

What I bought it for was uncertain.

I am an exemplary employee and I know that because I am told so once every quarter during my performance review. They rave about how I push myself to do better, like the song tells me to. They tell me how much they love how deeply I think and care about the problems I am assigned, just like the song tells me to. They tell me I’ll eventually get what’s coming to me, just like the song does. That is when I ask if this exemplary employee will make VP soon. They then give me a small raise that’s usually not more than one percent. That is when I push even harder, just like the song tells me to, and ask again when I will make VP. 

They say soon, but they’re uncertain. 

I listen to “You Can Make it if You Try" one more time because I want to believe them, but I don’t. The song is obviously written to be uplifting and positive. The combination of guitar and trumpet with their happily swung notes is inappropriate. It should have been written as a philosophically detrimental revelation to the human race. You might make it if you try, but no one can guarantee you will make it if you try. You can push with every bit of your soul towards your endgame, but that only means you might reach it. Uncertainty is a fog that is never lifted from around you. 

The gun is still resting on my hand and I decide to wrap my fingers around the handle one at a time. I slowly wrap my pinky finger, my index finger, and my middle finger around the handle, then my pointer finger around the trigger. I don’t lift the gun at all , but I grasp it tight. I think about how I can’t even know if this gun will fire if I pull the trigger. I can load the gun right, but that doesn’t mean it will fire. Maybe the gun wasn’t put together correctly or the bullet had the wrong amount of gun powder in it or the firing pin is too short. Maybe if I put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger, I would live.  

My head feels like it is spinning and I rapidly shake it back and forth. It feels like my subconscious mind is conducting seventy trains of thought all at the same time and I can’t control where they are going and they can all collide into one another and they might all collide into one another. I move the gun from my right hand to my left and reach into the glove box for the bottle of whiskey I bought earlier. I rip the lid off and begin drinking as fast and hard as possible. I can drink the whole bottle but that doesn’t mean I will. I lose track of how many gulps I take of the drink as the liquid burns my tongue and stomach and throat.  

Whether I’ll make it out of the car is uncertain. 

I move the gun back to my right hand and the whiskey to my left and look out the window. I’ve driven to the edge of a pond not far from where I live but over an hour from where I work. I look at the water that reflects the moon and cry a little. It’s dark, but the moon gives me enough light.  I’ve been coming to this spot for years to think and clear my head. There’s a dirt path that leads to the pond and it looked like others drove on the path but I have never seen anyone else here. I am always completely alone when I come here. Maybe that is the one thing I can count on being certain.  

As I think about how alone I am, headlights appear behind me. Another generic looking sedan has pulled onto the road and is driving towards me. I begin to feel nervous but I don’t know why. The car parks parallel to mine but twenty feet to the left. An elderly man, probably twenty or twenty-five years older than me, gets out of the driver's seat. He surveys his surroundings and draws in a deep, long breath. He holds the breath for a fleeting moment, then releases it. He takes out a pack of cigarettes and smokes one, two, then three of them. Not once does he acknowledge that there is another vehicle at the pond. After the third cigarette, he takes in one more deep breath, surveys the area once more and drives off. 

Even my aloneness is uncertain. 

I take more gulps from the bottle and play with the weight of the gun in my hand. I find the safety on the left side and flip it off and on, off and on, off and on. Then, more gulps from the bottle. I place the barrel on my temple. I can pull the trigger. I might pull the trigger. I can make it if I try. I might make it if I try. I don’t know if I ever make it out of this moment. I don’t know if I ever pull the trigger. I don’t know if I make it. I don’t know if it matters. If I survive this moment, I can make it, but I don’t think I will. I am perpetually sitting in my car at a pond with a gun in my hand. If I go home and go to sleep, I am still here. If I go to work and do my best, I am still here. If I pull the trigger and die, I am still here. This moment, this feeling, is where I am. 

My uncertainty is certain.