I wrote this really long blog about my time on leave and decided it was lame. I suppose it would have shown me as more or less multi dimensional and somewhere in the general direction of passionate, but all this selfishness is making me sick. I’ll write something else instead, something shorter. I came here to reconnect with old friends and the parts of my family who I have to see at least once a year, and I did that. I also came here to experience some momentary bliss, and that happened too! This trip was then most certainly a success. I also derived much inspiration, though I’ve probably drank too much for that inspiration to work its way to my words until a few weeks from now.
I was in Tucson, and I couldn’t have asked for more during my time there. I kidnapped Vanda, crashed a vegan tea party, crashed a music festival and city fair with my goofy monkey costume… but one jam and one ghost punch after the entire torrent of great times with great people I was alone again at four in the morning in an airport. I was up in the air once again, but I don’t consider my home in an airport or some fancy hotel. My home is in the hearts of awesome people. For a moment I couldn’t see that, but it may have set the tone in my mind for a major part of the trip to Tulsa.
I bought my sister a violin and showed up on my mother’s porch and when she opened the door she screamed like a banchee. I took that scream for her being happy, since, in context, she was also squeezing me and crying. Maybe that moment made the entire trip worth it, if those most blissful moments somehow weren’t. But that moment soon ended as well.
Sometimes other people can be Hell. Sometimes other people are the highest heaven. Sometimes the lack of people is Hell. and those moments weigh heavier in our hearts than all the blissful times combined. Despite the truth that soon my ship will set sail and this time I don’t know when I’ll be back again, I remember the anticipation I felt as I shoved the hat on my head to keep the wind from blowing it off in Matt’s car as we sang “Within a mile of home,” I remember the joy I felt when I toy my old friends from middle and high school that I loved them with all my heart, I remember being a ghost puncher outside Elcon Mall, I remember watching flight of the conchords, I remember jamming, and I remember stumbling back from those bars shoulders locked with those of Silviu’s and Dawn’s.
I remember when I became desperate, like one who’s afraid to die because he’s never lived, and I realized I had never lived in the sense that is most important to me. The right buttons were pushed, the right synapses were sent electrical signals to, and the next thing you know my heart is dragging out the old fifties vinyl records, popping corks on wine bottles and lining itself with their fragrances. This is my mental instability, my tormenting replay, that I place all my bets on moonbeams and when I wake up and realize that reality doesn’t coincide with my dreamworld, I go into the wilderness to gather my wits again, trying to tear myself apart and become someone, while mostly the same, is something better. I try, at least. I dream again. It is what I do.
Take notice that I’m not making effort to be superfluous. I’m not trying to use culture to sing for me like the scenesters with their beards and the emo kids and their tight clothes and music, or the screamo variety who swear their music represents something meaningful. Hey, if it means something to them then I suppose it does. But I don’t sing the song of a particular culture. I use culture to sing my own song.
This is who I am right now. but not who I may be tomorrow. I judge no one but myself and accept no one else’s interpretation of my own convictions, save for the fact that I accept they have convictions and that they are valid for themselves in their own lives. However, to be fair, I don’t take constructive criticism lightly.
I am unable to quiet my gratitude to you all, my closest friends and family. Your lives and love are the inspiration and strength that keeps me going. It is with the highest esteem and honor that I can call myself your friend and most humble servant.
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