It’s one of those nights where I should definitely be asleep, and yet I’m not. Well, those are most nights, but tonight has this different mood to it. It’s one of those moods where you’re listening to just the right music, it’s just the right temperature, you’re in just the right mood. And what this all means to me personally is that I want to write, or create something. At this point, I’ll take to writing, because hey, this keyboard’s right under my fingers.
I’m moving on Saturday, and I couldn’t be happier. This room holds so many bad memories; they lay inside the walls and crawl out to remind me they were once realities once in a while. There are smells, or songs that come up time to time and a flood of just black comes through. Of wet salt, of holding on too tight. Of physically feeling the most painful emotions. I didn’t know that could happen. One night, it felt like my chest was being pulled out of my body, and I screamed. I screamed and cried like a newborn child being taken away from anything familiar. And I hit rock bottom. I saw waiting rooms, people who asked me the same questions thousands of times. I saw hotel rooms, tainted now with the feeling of sinking in a pit. I saw a lot of freeway, driving to get to the closest family’s house. I saw a lot of the inside of my eyelids, and a lot of his chest as I buried myself in it. Planes, airports by myself, scared of everything. I saw the same room once a week, the same face asking me questions I couldn’t answer without crying. And I saw prescription order forms, and finally, over a good period of time and effort, I saw normalcy. Chemical normalcy. The relief of being able to get up in the morning and go about my day without being anxious or depressed. I hate even thinking about all what happened, I’m still not far enough away time wise from it. I’m stable, I’m generally happy, I’m not depressed, not anxious. But just the mere thought of any of that coming back, even the tiniest bit, scares the shit out of me. This is the first time I’ve really laid it out and written about it. I want it to be a catharsis of sorts, and I wish it was that easy, but I think it’s a good step.
My room is messy. I’ll clean it, and it’ll stay that way for a couple days, and it just goes back to the way it was. I don’t mind all too much, although I do like a neat place sometimes. But a mess means you live in there right? A little controlled chaos in the form of clothes on the floor from looking for something to wear, some cleats in a soccer bag, paint and paintbrushes on my desk. I always got in trouble for my room being a mess, and I suppose I still would if I lived at home. I think maybe it being a little untidy makes it seem more mine to me in this house of everything that I wouldn’t consider to me my home really at all. I haven’t felt truly at home for over a year now, since my parents moved, but I think that’s going to change.
I want wind in my hair liberation. I want longboards down hills by the beach, skydiving out of a plane, plummeting only to be caught by a piece of material, skimboards on waves and a wetsuit on my skin. I want to catch every moment I think is beautiful on film. 35mm, 120mm, I want to capture those moments. I always wonder if I’m the only one standing there, seeing something incredibly beautiful, almost moving. I’m too shy to ask. You’ve got to be a Cali or an Alex for me to say something like that. I want ripped jeans, his big Floyd sweatshirt smelling of cigarrettes and that old cologne. I want that 2009-I-just-met-you smell that I will forever love and hold in my nasal memory. I want to sing, to dance, to run and jump and feel. A whole room of paints, charcoals, paper, canvas. Any art supply imaginable at my use. I want tea on cold nights, barefoot walks on hot ones. Vinyl spinning in the dark, the sound of dust, decades old, crackling under the needle. The moon and stars, the universe at my dispense, to gaze upon. There’s a park around here I like to go to at night. You stand in the middle of it’s big field, vacated of the soccer players and the joyful shrieks of children in the late hours, and you can see the sky bend like a globe. Looking up at the sphere of light polluted stars; it’s the best it gets around here. I want shows, where everyone knows the words and you get lost in the crowd. Shows that make you want to run in the streets afterwards. I want the flight of my bike down the cracked streets of Riverside every first Friday of the month. Flying in the dark, laughing, pedaling.
I’m a creator. I want to build, sculpt, paint anything I can. The mechanics of a bike are soothing to me; learning to work on a car. Grease on my hands is the best reward I can take. I changed my oil for the first time and I felt like I could do anything. Get me a jumpsuit, I’m gonna change everyone’s fuckin’ oil. I want to take everything apart, and put it all back together. I love knowing how things work. What cogs turn to pull what gears. I may not know all the exact names of the tools, but I sure as hell can use them. It’s all art; all the technicalities, all of the grease covered parts. Just give me a medium and I’ll use it however I can. The paintings on my walls have my fingers on them, and the photographs on my cork board have my eye in them. These are my creations; I’m the intelligent designer.
This is all a stream of consciousness; I find myself writing like this more and more. Everything just flows out of my fingers. I always have been able to write so much better than I can speak; words are my home. One of my professors assigned a completely verbal in class assignment today, and I hated it. I wanted to write everything, to see pen on paper and words formed by letters I could see. It’s sturdy; written language. I think that’s why I like English as a subject so much. It’s sturdy and beautiful. All I want to do is be a teacher, and see kids seeing what I do. To see them grasping and loving words and books and pages. I need to set aside a day soon, and just go to the library and read. I haven’t gotten lost in a book in too long.
The AM has settled in; the kind after midnight where you still refer to the hours and time as today when it should be tomorrow. I’m here every day, every morning. School comes too quick, sleep is too faint. But I have that last goodnight/sweet dreams/I love you bunny text to read, that holds me over. I’ve got those facebook posts to like, those craigslist ads to browse, all the superficial things that take time in the AM when I should definitely be asleep, and yet I’m not. Well, those are most nights.
I stepped out of my car and joined a team that would become a family. I thought they were crazy, and I was right, but I became one of them.28 bibs, 112 safety pins, a few medals and awards, dozens of pairs of shoes, thousands of miles, and many a come and go of familiar faces brings me here, four years later, at the end of my journey through high school cross country.