push through

I once had a dream where Bob Dylan was my bartender. I leaned over the counter, looked him dead in the eye, and asked, “Bob, what’s the secret to life?”
He didn’t say a word. Just scribbled something on a napkin and slid it across the bar. I unfolded it like it was scripture.

Two words: Push through.

I remember clutching that napkin like it was sacred, thinking, I have to wake up with this in my hand. If I wake up holding it, I’ll know it’s real. I’ll tell everyone—Bob Dylan gave me the answer to life.

But of course, I woke up empty-handed. And late for work.

I’ve loved Bob Dylan for as long as I can remember. It started with that scene in Forrest Gump, when Jenny’s up on stage singing “Blowin’ in the Wind.” After that, I ran up and down the hallways belting, “How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man?” like it was my personal anthem.

My dad would crack open his fourth beer and laugh, telling his buddies, “I don’t know where she picked up that hippie shit,” like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Although once I aged out of the threat of being grounded, once I started shouting back when he made racist remarks, once I changed my address to Los Angeles—he didn’t find my “hippie shit” so funny anymore.

But then it was time to go to the protest, so I went. The whole thing, though, felt just as sheep-like and brainwashed as the people we were supposed to be opposing. Chanting slogans, waving signs. I looked around and noticed something I don’t think anyone else did: at the bottom of the city hall steps—about a story down—there were maybe 300 people packed in together. And right there sat a crowd of activists, embodying everything people who love guns claim to hate. And it did take long for me to realize that it took just one of those gun loves to come around and make a the saying like fish in a barrel come true. I slipped away from my friends and climbed the hill toward Subway. Got myself a sandwich. Then wandered through downtown, dropping dollars into homeless folks’ jars, listening to the Bee Gees in my headphones, Stayin’ alive. After all that wandering, I somehow circled back to the end of the protest. Same chants, different backdrop—this time in the park, scattered and tense, with cops breaking it up like a high school party gone wrong.

I saw a flash of motion. A cop slamming someone to the ground and instinctively started running toward it. Pulled my Penxtas k-100 out, ready to get the shot. But before I could, my friends grabbed my arm. “It’s time to go,” they said.

We ended up at a bar, where everyone ordered drinks and patted each other on the back for sacrificing their Saturday night. Like that was the revolution. I’d already spent all my money on a sandwich and a trail of homeless folks’ jars, so my friend—with her $90,000 salary—had to buy me a PBR. She Venmo requested me for it the next morning.

I’ve since learned to be wary of bandwagons dressed as revolutions. I don’t trust what people say they believe in because it’s been reshared 100 times in the mirror. But I listen to people who are directly affected, not just those performing their concern. I know when something’s trending because it’s urgent and the only thing to be talked about over 20 dollar cocktails but only after you get a picture first.

Bob Dylan never really answered my question. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe pushing through means sitting with the discomfort, scrolling past the slogans, and still choosing to care. Choosing to act. Choosing to keep trying—even when we wake up empty-handed.