"I mean, why are you here?”
I thought he was asking why I showed up in New York, with no real plans or ideas for the week. This is something we both do, the showing up, the flying by the seat of our pants ish, so I was confused.
"Like, here?" I pointed to the guacamole.
"Yeah, like why do you exist?”
Oh, the other big question. My brother is good at these. He asks them in such a way that implies there is a correct answer, and he has it, and you are in the hot seat to figure it out. But he's actually asking you because he is curious.
"Well if I knew I think I'd be done with it.”
"No, but say you had an hour left to live, and you were like, 'oh shit' - what would that 'oh shit' be about? What would you be scrambling to finish?”
"An hour is not long enough to finish anything.”
I'm not good at hypotheticals. It's been well documented and not the point of this story. Just bear with it. Everyone else has to.
He sighs. Takes a sip of the spiciest tequila either of us has ever had. We thought it would force us to go slow, like how real adults drink scotch. Instead, one of us got hiccups and the other got blisters.
"OK fine, but you're not getting out of the question - say you had long enough to address it, what would you need to get to?”
There's a deeply seeded part of me that feels if I knew the reason I was here, that would be the end of me. Superstition or whatnot, if I had the secret to life it would kind of ruin the ending.
"It's like solving a puzzle blindfolded," I tried to explain. "It's a pretty simple puzzle, I think, probably, but you can't solve it without the blindfold. If you take it off, game over, you're done. You have to do it with the handicap. That's the point.”
You don't know until you know is my point.
I don't know if I'm right, and I've certainly been hellbent on being wrong before. But I like to think of life this way.
I also like to think there are more people than just us two who eat tacos and ask a bunch of why's, but I haven't met many of them. So if you're wondering why else you're here, bring your questions, your avocados, and your margaritas to me as soon as you can, please.