Dear Lana,

I discovered what alienation meant today. It is a feeling the world you were born into wasn’t the world that you were meant to be in. In response to that, the solution is to exit.

It reminds me of the image of being in a restaurant. When you are eating in a restaurant, it is not like you can actually leave the restaurant. There are procedures in place. You need to ask for the check. Then you wait. The waiter comes and gives you the check. You give them your debit card. You wait some more. And only when all of the procedures are met can you leave the restaurant.

Sometimes, I think life is just the feeling of wanting to leave a restaurant. You can technically leave all you want, but there seem to be so many procedures in place that prevent you from doing so. Life is very procedural in that regard. There is a procedure for entering a restaurant. There is a procedure for eating at a restaurant. Finally, when the food and desserts are being dissolved in stomach acid, when whatever conversations took place in the plan of an hour is relegated into the past, when the waiters and waitresses look to each other in anticipation for the end of the night, there is another procedure for leaving.