Content.

The penultimate column of the third year of lowerblackpain. I never saw it comin’. But here we are, together. Thank you for your time.

There is a popular internet trend where two photos are displayed next to each other, the first labeled “how it started” and the second “how it’s going”. The juxtaposition implies that between the first image and the second a great deal has occurred:

First image:

a summertime photo of two kids in overalls sitting by a lake on a dock, laughing.

Second image:

a summertime photo of what must be the same two people, now as adults, in similar clothing on the same dock, holding a baby.

The key to this being fun is assumption; that they fell in love, had a child, and still vacation at the same lake, the crazy kids.

(This game is not nearly as fun to play with your own photographs because you know exactly what happened between the two pictures. Memories are more substantial than assumption, heavy cream to a meringue, a pound of lead to a pound of feathers.)

My “how it started” photo would be me wearing COVID attire (you know what I mean) seated our tiny office space, typing with furrowed brow.

But “how it’s going?” In a spirit of brutal honesty, I am still in the same tiny office space, my brow not quite as furrowed but still a little furrow-y.

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For various reasons I’ve recently been in a few waiting rooms, each of which was equipped with a ludicrously giant television playing a cooking program starring superstar chef, Bobby Flay.

At my old dentist’s office, he was working with kids to make Ultimate Desserts.

At my new dentist’s office, one of his oldest friends was competing with him to create the Ultimate Hamburger in just under 20 minutes.

At the doctor’s office, a comedian from the 1990’s and a somewhat-less-than-superstar chef served as judges in his poblano pepper contest. Sorry, Ultimate Poblano Pepper contest.

I do not work as hard as Bobby Flay. I know that. He follows in the footsteps of celebrity brand leader Martha Stewart. I do not work as hard as Martha Stewart, either. My “how it’s going” photo is never going to be me on the set of my lifestyle show, arms around my guests Elvis Costello and Dr. Bronner (that’s a real person, right?).

But I work hard. I really do. Just not that hard.

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My social media algorithm has figured out that I am

a) more or less sixty years old

b) an office worker

c) not in what anyone would call “beach shape”

thus my feeds are flooded with “30 day chair workouts”, promising that “in two weeks you’ll feel it, and in four weeks you’ll see it”.

There are tons of these, each with their own icon of golden age fitness - an impossibly tanned man with his long white hair in a savage ponytail and a full white beard that dares you to call him Hot Santa… the “regular guy” that transforms, through a series of jump cuts, to a regular guy with a washboard tummy and Cliffs Of Dover pectorals… the “guy who looks even more tired than you are” who begins the program incredibly begrudgingly and ends up one of the Avengers™.

My “how it’s going” photo is never going to be me as Chocolate Thunder: legs like iron, abs of steel, arms resembling cubic zirconia. But I should work out more. If I do one of these programs, it will be the one with the super intense guy in a backward baseball cap promising “this is your opportunity to improve your swagger and get those Michelle Obama arms!”

Hashtag Black Girl Magic.

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I am not content.

I looked it up, just to be sure.

Unsurprisingly, the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries don’t exactly agree on the definition - one says it’s

“a state of peaceful happiness”

and the other says it means one is

“pleased with their situation”

Actually, they both skew a bit darker than that: their full entries read

“a state of peaceful happiness; being willing to accept a particular thing”

and

“pleased with their situation and not hoping for change or improvement”

So, like I said, I am apparently not content. There are currently loads of particular things I find myself unwilling to accept.

Content implies a stationary satisfaction without forward motion, ambition, driving passion, or evolving purpose. Let none of us be content! Let us march ever forward toward enlightenment, improvement, and innovation! Let us push the boundaries of –

no, you’re right, that sounds exhausting.

I remember, from the long ago days when I used to be able to eat all kinds of food, something called a Cinnabon™: about three quarters of the way through one a state of peaceful happiness occurred, and I was, indeed, pleased with my situation. But that went away - usually within 15 minutes.

Thus, in my experience, contentment is a temporary state of being. Looking back on 157 of these columns, I think my “how it’s going” photo would be me standing on a staircase landing, holding the bannister, wearily smiling, with 157 floors below me, and somehow (and this would have to be a pretty incredible shot) hundreds of staircases left to go.