Turn Daydreams into something you can touch.

In and out of my bedroom five times. Where are my keys?

Was I looking for my keys? They were right by the bed uncovered, looking at me as I frenzied in and out of the doorway. I got to work. No wallet. No rfid chip to scan. No way through the turnstiles without using the call box, which put a spotlight on my potential tardiness. Factory life.

If I had kept a journal while I worked at Toyota, the paragraph above could have easily opened 35 or more of the entries.

I would do all kinds of things to fill the 45 minute drive to and from work everyday.

I'd listen to audiobooks, lecture courses, music, and near the end I would do vocal workouts off of a Youtube playlist I had, but no matter what diversion I would get into for the drives, daydreaming was always my primary pass time.

Then I'd get to the factory floor and continue daydreaming throughout the night (because I worked night shift for 97% of my tenure) with some sort of autopilot controlling the physical tasks necessary for my job.

It wasn't too long before I realized that there wasn't much difference between the daydreams I would have and the narratives of the video games, audiobooks, or movies that I devoured to escape the lack of structure to my cognitive processes. They only need polish, structure and sometimes, solid collaboration.

If you feel stupid often enough, you get good at it. I left my car running for an entire shift one night. It was nice and warm when I got back to it, and had a quarter of a tank left to get me home. I kind of coasted through life back then, sometimes I still do. I felt like I was watching everyone else live. They still got excited about things that just didn't do it for me anymore.

For the longest time I believed that I couldn't ever finish a story, because I couldn't even remember my locker combination most of the time. Then Covid sent us home for four weeks, and Toyota paid us most of that, which was wonderful. With all that time on my hands I started planning things. I took a writing class online. I started each day with yoga and eventually had a boxing routine that started to get me back into decent shape for the first time in years.

When work started back up I abandoned all of that, and got comfortable being an observer of life again. Then I would get uncomfortable, break down, and start the cycle over.

At some point I started thinking about how many people turn their day dreams into something. I found out, much to no one who's ever known me's surprise, that I had adhd. I started taking supplements and doing talk therapy, I started thinking about the people living of of their day dreams, only this time I thought "Why the fuck not me?"

Why not me?

I didn't feel like I had enough time to write, so I would think of things on my way to work, very short things, I would record them in the notebook in my phone and at break, I would doodle in my work planner.

That was one of my first doodles and I loved it, I still do. I sketched in ink with a pilot g2 7mm pen at break everyday from there on out.

I've doodled the same picture three times.

Anyway I quit Toyota. The 22nd of February 2022 was my official last day. I've not regretted it yet.

I will write those daydreams, I will draw them, I will doodle them and I hope people like them half as much as I do. I will write a novel someday, I will make a movie script, I will make an animated movie..... because why not me?

Thank you to anyone who read this. Let's be creative together. Cheers.