Archive for the ‘This Diary of Me’ Category
On The Prospect Of Change
I hate when people tell me I have “changed.”
Throughout my life that is the one comment that has always made my blood boil. The anger that it creates in me is unrivaled by any back-handed insult or petty exchange. The hurt that it causes throughout my whole body is more than emotional, it is physical and real. My entire being throbs and I want to discard the individual whose hollow mouth exhaled such an injustice into the world.
I find the comment willfully ignorant and selfish. Those who cast such charges against me betray their own deficiency in understanding the real me, the man behind it all, the small boy whose all grown up and still feels the way he felt about life and his place on earth. It makes me doubt that they ever knew me at all, and I believe that is why it hurts so much.
I am janus-faced. I am a multitude of people wrapped in a thin veil of flesh. I am the life of the party, a social butterfly that you would swear was never an awkward caterpillar. This me always had wings, never suffering from the unsure creep of its causal predecessor. I am a quiet loner, much happier by myself and kept busy only with the streams of consciousness flowing through my mind. This me likes thinking and analyzing various metaphysical ideas, and then analyzing my previous analysis–a never ending cycle of assumptions, assertions, and doubt. I am the best friend you ever had, a minute away if you needed anything. This me lives to make your life better, an ear always open and a hand never unwilling to help. I am distant and cold, living off the moment I exist within and not caring much for those who I cannot see or feel outside the bounds of their general wellbeing. This me loves you and needs to know you’re alright, but does not need anything more to be happy.
I’ve been struggling lately with friends from another life. A life in which every weekend was free and neither began nor ended, simply extended on indefinitely. This life was college–the least amount of responsibility and the most amount of freedom we will all ever experience. These friends from this past life have been hurt by the aspect of my personality that is absorbed heavily in the life I live now: eleven hour work days and split days off, ten to nine, friday and sunday off. The eternal weekend supplanted by the eternal hustle. This is my professional life.
They scoff and moan, insisting that I’ve changed. I have not, but my life has. I am no longer a minute away, no longer unshackled and free. I am confined and controlled. I have obligations and responsibilities that I would die to forget. I miss them all, but that isn’t enough. They don’t want to accept that I live an extremely different lifestyle than even they do in their own professional lives. Eight to five with weekends off sounds like a vacation to me.
I wish they could understand, but I believe they choose not to, instead opting for passive aggressive assaults on my character. “He’s changed.” How could I not in some degree? How can another year of life not somehow create in me new multitudes of men, all new and shaped from the unique experiences in which only I have endured. Yet at my core I am the same as I always was. I am still the person you love and grew to call “friend.” Is it so hard to see?
Change does not frighten me, because I know that it will only amend the already ambiguous cloud that is my personality. As a child I loved history, and girls, and the idea of love, and freedom, and pickles, and all the stupid little things that still make my day. All the things that will always make my day.
On the most fundamental level we don’t ever truly change from who we are; we just wear the different faces that the world paints upon us. I understand that and still love you all deeply, though you have changed in your own ways. But if you cannot accept the me that you once did, when only circumstance and prospect has changed, then I cannot stand next to you any longer.
It’s not a threat. It’s not an ultimatum. It’s just something that isn’t going to happen.
An Average Day For Average Men
Download LinkStreetlight Manifesto - Everything Went Numb
I wake up late from a night out with friends, still drunk from another night at the mausoleum of our fortunes. I do not have time to shower, and I’m out of deodorant. A quick sniff test reveals the bland mix of dull cigarette smoke and the previous day’s must, and it must suffice. Changing into clothes whose fresh scent hide my own biological soup, I dart out of the door. There is simply not enough time.
But there is always time for cigarettes. Wheeling around corners and sending my maniac green machine forward, I make a quick stop at the gas station. I walk in and before I can utter a word, the woman behind the counter pulls a pack of Turkish Silver loose from its plastic prison. Everyday I walk in, and everyday she is here. It is beyond routine. Its pathetic. I slide seven dollars over the counter, for I know the price, and turn without saying another word or bothering with my change (37 cents to be exact…)
I feel as if I’ve just done something wrong.
I speed to work, lost in thought and the reverberating sound of horns emanating from their digital prison within my dashboard. The streetlight manifesto of my life.
Manning the phones is automatic. Control, alt, delete. Enter password. Throw the headset around my neck. Lock, stock, and ready to roll.
The phone rings. And so it begins.
They offered a free catered lunch at work, but I longed to be alone. To be everywhere but here, so I left without saying a word. Again, I felt as I had done something wrong. But my crime was only discourteous in nature.
I went to a fast food restaurant and as I waited in line I noticed that the manager was interviewing a middle-aged woman. She looked like someone’s mother: round and caring, with the chiseled lines of so many smiles and even more frowns. As I waited I tuned in intently to their conversation.
The manager sat across the small booth from her. A portly fellow. If it usually sat four, with him two was just cozy enough. He waved his arms about in grand fashion, gently tossing her application back and forth–the single sheet which in 8×11 summed up the working history of an entire human being. He was condescending and pedantic, using flowery language to ask the most debasing questions…
“What would you say the incentives are for you to take on this job?”
To fulfill my dream of wearing a cardboard hat and an ill-fitting shirt while serving people food that will slowly kill them…she seemed to say…
He told her that he would hire her, but “there is one caveat.” Such a beautiful word belongs no where near this conversation, but alas, he warned her that he could only pay her $6.75 an hour.
She nodded affirmatively as she had the whole time. A desperate woman and the man throwing her scraps, enjoying his pathetic position of power over her. It was sick. Human life only worth $6.75 an hour, and her gleefully sopping it up.
I wanted to take her by the hand and walk her out into the world and release her from this servitude. She was worth more. I swear she was worth more. But she will start this Sunday, black slacks and black shoes are required. She said she would have to buy some…
I returned to work and after the initial round of “where’d you go’s” I settled back into my pilot’s seat. Control, alt, delete. Enter password. Throw the headset around my neck. Lock, stock, and ready to roll.
And the phone rings. So it begins again.
My first call of the second half was from a sweet old lady. She was interested in a computer, for she would have much time at home in times not yet passed. She was dying. Although she did not let on the nature of her impending twilight, she was quiet and sad when speaking of it. She wished to discover the internet and email. She wanted to share pictures of her newborn grandchild with her friends who had braved the great binary highway years ago, leaving her behind to betas and 8-track cassettes. Her name was beautiful, like hepatica dying to grow in dark corners. Her pain was slow motion, like the same flower reaching for the lonely ray of light which cuts through the gloom. I set her up and hit release, sending her off into the world. Alone. And dying.
I was forced to work an hour of overtime in the morning, and was slated for one in the evening. But five minutes before the arduous extra hour was to begin I was released from my servitude and sent home to thank the gods of both occupation and relaxation for such a welcome reprieve.
I smelt bad. The fresh scent of clean clothes faded fast in the heightened intensity of my heat. I decided to swing by the store and pick up some freshness, because society told me that I was intolerable, although I was quite comfortable.
As I drove, I saw a bicyclist standing over a wrecked bike. His knees bloody and head hanging. Holding a broken wheel in one hand, he looked disgusted. I wondered how far he’d have to walk to get to wherever he called home.
And I drove on.
I grabbed a stick of deodorant and was checked out by a cheeky female with a robotic voice. A human sound to such an inhuman device. I looked around and noticed the lines forming at these automated checkout contraptions while check-out lanes with clerks remained empty. I thought, “To what lengths we go to simply be alone…”
I snatched my receipt and left. Lighting my last cigarette, having killed the entire pack throughout the day, I realized how fast I am killing myself. I thought about stopping for another pack, but the thought offended me and my sense of biological existence.
I drove passed the same biker, still staring at his wreckage with the same look of disgust, so far from home…
And I drove on, with everything numb.
Just an average day for an average man. Routine, solitude, and sharing in the misery of others.
Damn, I wish I had a cigarette.
The Shadow of Angels
Hmmm…where to begin..? They say context possesses the greatest illuminative property, and who am I to disagree with orthodoxy?
And no, that wasn’t sarcasm for a welcome change.
I remember the first day we met, which by now I’m sure you know is something quite special as my memory may not be the mightiest of my gifts. I walked into the first day of class late, because I believe in setting the tone early for the semester. I was half asleep, head hanging and feet shuffling. I saw an open seat by you and I figured why not?
Our professor had us fill out name plates. Seniors in college on the verge of the fabled real world, and I find myself writing “ELLIOTT G.” in large block letters with a colored marker. A victim of my era, I glanced your way to procure a name for a later facebook search. Needless to say I was interested, but when am I not? We both know this.
Class was a mixture of children’s games and spoon fed classroom rules. We would break them all. Well, mostly me…
I remember the first time I was able to talk with you. The well-placed questions to feel out your situation. It was not long until I discovered the bane of our chemically-ordained attraction: boyfriend, eight years and going. Welcome to frienddom, my friend. I told myself that I would be good, that I would respect this obviously powerful union. I was comfortable being your friend immediately, as we had so much in common. I let it all hang out: the good, the bad, and the ridiculously obnoxious. I had nothing to lose. I had friends, and if you didn’t like me, well, what was the damage?
And we became close. Really close. I confided in you the darkness which haunts me, the afflictions of my soul, and you provided not only an ear to listen, but heartfelt and honest advice, even criticism, which for whatever reason never offended me. You fell right into the circle of my life. My friends became yours, and slowly our burgeoning friendship grew into the things of life long camaraderie. It was all I could ask for.
The day you were engaged to be wed was a true shock to my system. I had longed for her, the dream of my youth and its appeal to every aspect of my fantastic persona. But the day you called me to report such wondrous news it did indeed sadden me. I replayed it all over in my head a thousand times. I thought back to the day I told you, as we left my apartment on some grand mission only the two of us could ever complete, that maybe, in another universe, we would be a good team. You smiled, a sad and quiet smile, and walked on ahead.
My heart, as unfocused as my mind, would bounce from the girl of my youth and our possibilities to the very possibility of you and I. It was a fleeting thought, as they usually are. But the weight of your impending marriage was a heavy load for me to carry. I remember scoffing at your engagement ring: insulting and condescending. “Gaudy,” I seemed to say with a jovial toss of my hand. I was aching, with the questions I am prone to ask myself in times of helplessness. It hurt, but we had always been friends, and even when I played with the idea, I immediately cast it into the bows of the “forever-no,” alongside my dreams of walking on the moon and flying with pigs.
I thought this was just another moment of self-doubt and regret. I’ve had them before, especially with women. The kind of failure I am far too familiar with. But I had done nothing. Nothing but be a good and honest friend and let the chips fall where they may. I had pledged to respect your relationship and I had, to my inquisitive heart’s dismay.
But the day you called me to tell me you two had amicably split, I was secretly elated. I had my demons to exorcise–the girl of Christmas past and fantastic futures I had envisioned a thousand times. But I was so secretly happy. I felt for the first time that maybe that other universe we had spoke of outside my apartment may someday exist.
And she came to visit me, the girl of my childhood, the girl who had been woven so delicately into my life. And every waking moment I compared her to you. The way she smiled at my jokes. The way she reacted to my casual touch. The way she mingled with my friends and cohorts. Everything had a standard and that standard was so clearly you. She spent a week with me; a long week without you. I remember sneaking messages to you. The most benign “how are you’s?” a man could write to the girl he was realizing he loved so dearly.
She left and I felt like a weight have been lifted off my shoulders. The shackles had been cut. I had been walking in the shadow of an angel and had never fully realized its wondrous light until now. You were right. You were right for me. And you were finally free.
And now you are mine. And I love you so much sometimes it hurts to think it took so long to end up together…
But I do not regret the long road we traveled to find one another. I find it necessary. We had to become friends, the best of friends, and flesh out the most revolting and most amazing aspects of one another to truly fall in love. You know me better than anyone; you know the full me. I let it all hang out, because I had nothing to lose at first. And you didn’t recoil, you accepted it all with open arms and gave me compassion and love in return for nothing. Now I can give you something, my love and my gift…the gift I wanted so badly to give.
I think it all happened for a reason. Eight year boyfriends and girls from a past life, all keeping us at bay and giving us an opportunity to find each other’s real value, preventing us from making mistakes that would shortchange an obviously good thing.
I’m not sorry about anything I’ve ever done, and you certainly aren’t. Even if you were, you wouldn’t have to be.
Together.
In context.
And I couldn’t be happier.
The Earth Is Not A Cold Place
Days like today are rare. Everything seems in place. The weather is beautiful. And I am all alone.
But not for long. Soon…a collection of the best friends I have will brave the world and soon join me for nights not so long gone.
Yet for now, I enjoy the solitude. The calm before the storm you could say. Music and sun light fill my room, as well as the rustle of pets, equally sharing in the warmth of today’s gifts.
I’ve spent the first bit of today cleaning and between cigarettes I read past entries to this website and on a fundamental level I am saddened. For the memory is weak, and words written do not lie. I feel my own pain–the pain of growing up and figuring it all out. The pain of failure and doubt, of loneliness and dejection. These are my pains, yet now…they seem so distant.
I love where I am. I share a space, a pile of junk with a roof, with two of the best people I have ever met. I never doubted our success as roommates, but the last two months together has confirmed everything: we are so different, but we fit so well together. A collective…dare I say communion, where every man is equal and every one gives what they can, even if its small. Here, the thought truly counts.
They make my life tolerable when it seems so insufferable. And I would say I’m thankful, but thanks means nothing next to the comfort of this home.
I read about the anger and malaise in which I conduct my job–the occupational depression that keeps these lights on–and again I am saddened. I do so truly despise what I do. If not for its utter frustration, for its complete and total pointlessness. I want to move worlds. I want to change universes. I want so much more than…this…
But I sit here, hours before an interview at another company, and I find some level of discomfiture at the prospect of leaving my job. Perhaps its the pleasure of the familiar, the ease of routine…
Or maybe I am simply scared of exploring a new world. Fear is so completely powerful. I simply do not know.
I read about the hole within my heart, that bleeds for so many. Pouring out my love upon the world, I find in my writings a constant regret. And it is not relative to one woman or one place–but a universally explicit sadness. In previous entries I chastise those who abuse the word ‘love,’ and yet I must question if I myself am guilty as well.
My love is eternal. It is so much bigger than the sum of my parts. My love can move worlds. My love can change universes. If only I could focus this energy…harness its greatness and deliver it to the one or ones that deserve such potency. I suppose its more of a force than an emotion. I suppose my love is in all actuality my will, and I, at my core of cores, am a truly good person. I want nothing. I want nothing but your happiness. I think I would gladly die for it.
On the subject of love, I find my writings about previous relationships somewhat tough to swallow. I think about what went wrong with these women and I know it was most specifically my fault. I do sabotage good things; I do push away good people. But I think it is more than that. I think on some subconscious level they failed–they failed to deserve me and my force of will. They reject my universe in its entirety and for that their role has ended….even if they are truly good people…
You see, my existence is incompatible with society, but today that is alright. Because there are people, and there is a girl, who love me for the maelstrom of humanity that I have become. They recognize and accept me fully, and without question. And if I die possessing only one friend, one girl, than I have died a complete man–for I only need one person to accept me to validate my time on this planet.
And when I die, and I stand before God, I will remember everyone, the one, or possibly no one at all. The earth is not a cold dead place, or more truly, it does not have to be. As long as I have just one…
And I am fortunate…for I have many.
I’m going to go now.
Goodbye.
Goodnight.
Good luck.
To My Family
I was outside smoking a cigarette. Unfortunately my last. I hope my roommate picks me up a pack.
And I started thinking about her. I think about her a lot. I love her so much.
And for whatever reason it made me think about them. Maybe it was the short leap within my heart–from the one I love that I do not call family, to the ones I love so dearly that I do. But I started thinking about everything they mean to me, and what they’ve done. I have to get it out. I have to speak.
To the east coast. You’re so Italian it hurts. You live within hours from one another, but all call a different state home. New England doesn’t even begin to describe you. Growing up…I hated you. I hated you. I wanted you to love me so badly, but I felt like my family was ostracized. The derelict daughter who chased a boy and a dream into the deep south. We had somehow forsook an ancient code, a fidelity unwritten, but so clearly felt.
I felt your pretension. I felt as if you viewed us as inferior, as trash and rabble. Hillbillies on the frontier. Red state residents who didn’t deserve the honored seat at the table in which you so cherished. You rarely visited, and in so many cases you never visited. Our humble lives on the plains of North Texas seemed so inconvenient.
I hated it. I wanted your love so badly. I wanted to enjoy your food and have you regale me with tales of your youth. I wanted your accent. You made me feel like mine was such a shackle. A brand of ill omen, clearly marking me as fallen. I would speak to you all from time to time and end each call with the hollow and obligatory, “I love you,” that assuredly sounded as fake as it felt.
I didn’t know you. How could I..?
Growing old and growing up has done a lot for us. I realize now that you do not hate me. You do not despise us for our flight. In fact, I feel now more than ever I command your respect. I have achieved so easily what so many of you have struggled to do. I am the son of the great betrayer, and believe me I am his son. While I was given the gift of gab which you all so perfectly possess, I am that which none of you are: the prodigal son of Craig Griffin, and his gifts run through me. And I know you respect me.
I know you love me.
And for the longest time, I did not. It hurt so badly. Spending time with you as an adult has done so much for us. I have seen all of you in me. What should have been so obvious throughout the years–the wit, the various neuroses, and of course the fine tastes–are now so apparent. We are family, and you mean so much to me.
I miss you all. God, I miss you. I missed you for what seems like a lifetime. I am still the derelict, still part of the family that left the family. But I have a seat at your table. I suppose I always did. Now, I feel as if I am wanted there. I know you all never meant to do this, or to make me feel this way. You were simply living your lives…you had other family so close. But growing up without you wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy at all…
To the hooligans. You all are so ridiculous it hurts. But god knows I love you for it. A family of abused children. One sister, three brothers. A history that is so insane, so rife with toil and tragedy that at times I am simply overcome. Yet, you all stayed close. From Pennsylvania to Carolina back down to Texas…I never felt like you were far away. We share a last name and a camaraderie that transcends typical family.
I love you. I always have.
I sometimes lay in bed and wonder what awful things you all went through at the hands of my father’s father. I hate him. Knowing that his sin rushes through my very veins unnerves me. I want to eradicate every trace of him. Yet we all carry his mark upon our backs–a lion with eagle wings that we cannot shake so easily. Even as I write I see him in me…between key strokes and music shuffles I take sips from my beer, the vice which drove him to hurt you so deeply. I am him. We all are. But you all made the conscious decision to persevere, casting aside a childhood of strife and pain to become what you are today.
I respect you more than you know. Without you all I do not know what my concept of family would be.
To my Uncle and Aunt, fellow residents of the Lone Star State…you define me. Every Christmas or Fourth of July you were there. Every big football game and event…you found your way to support me, braving the six hour drive across state. Without you…I do not know what I would do. I love you so dearly I cannot begin to describe it to you.
To my Uncle bathing in the South Carolina sun…I am glad we have gotten to know one another. For so long your taciturn nature struck me as indifference, but I know you love me and my family. I remember seeing pictures of me as a small child, barely the age of four, and you were always there. We would play like brothers. We lived together then. My parents taking you in to protect you from the hell which you all so unbelievably experienced. The pictures always make me happy. You seemed so loving and so protective of me. I was always waiting for that side of you to return, but as an adult I realized that I am no longer the small child who would sleep on your chest or who you would throw around just to make smile. You are sagely and stern, but I will always remember how you cared for me like your very own…
Family is a weird thing. It’s not a choice, but a matter of circumstance. You cannot choose them, and they certainly did not choose you. I have a hard time understanding what exactly I am. I come from such different places. The blood that flows through me is the amalgam of two distinctly different histories, compiled from so many more distinctly different histories. But at this level, at this time, I realize how fortunate I am that I have the people around me that I do.
From the east coast clique to the band of hooligans on the other side, I am thankful for all of you. Even if it took a life time for me to realize that.
A Question Between Friends
A friend of mine recently married a lifelong friend and more recent partner. They married after his return from Iraq. I found out on Facebook.
Have I failed you?
His marriage was not the first that I discovered only because of our digital disease. And these are not casual friends, but people I would not hesitate to invite to my day of union with the woman I love. People who I have grown close to and shared such wondrous moments.
Not a phone call, letter, or even an email…Have I failed these people?
I sit back and ponder as to why they would not want me to be there…or simply to even know. From the girl who has written me completely from her history, to the best friend who took her heart from me, to a dear friend returning from the pits of hell–I have been left behind so completely.
In many ways I believe that it is my fault. I am a low-maintenance friend. You do not need to call me, no need to check in. I am alive and burning ahead. This particular mindset is reflexive, for I do not call to check on them. They are alive, burning ahead in their own direction. Simply knowing that the people I care about are out there, doing whatever it is they are doing, is more than enough for me. I know it hurts people, how cold and insensitive I must appear. I hardly pick up the phone, and even more rarely call back. But I am living my life, the here and now of things is preeminent. This moment is preeminent.
I think I push away a lot of people without even trying. My ability to completely disconnect from places and people must seem callous. But I do not ever truly disconnect. My mind constantly replaying the moments of my life…
Like the time my estranged girlfriend of three years cooked me an amazing Valentine’s Day dinner and served a dessert that succinctly read, “Will you be mine?”
Like the time when I finally decided to fight the kid who made the first three years of my high school career miserable, and after twenty minutes of waiting outside it was discovered that he had passed out in a closet.
Or the time that I gave you that Dorothy Parker anthology and your eyes grew so unbelievably wet, as if you had never received a more perfect gift.
I relive all of you every day. I just do not need to hear your voice. I know it sounds terrible. But when we see one another, we will pick up right where we left off–good times and better drinks. I care so much about you, but you would never know by the way I act. I think that is the great secret I possess and have alluded to on this page previously: I am a loner at heart. There are two of me. The guy you know and the guy I hide. The guy who smiles and the guy who wishes he knew how to cry. The life of the party and the one who never wanted to come in the first place.
I struggle with these aspects of my personality. I show so few people this real side of me. I expose it here so openly because I like to believe that no one reads it. The first time I wrote like this I was in character the entire time; the social butterfly and the comedian dominating the words written. I wanted people to laugh…many, many people. Now I write as the man at the core; the lonely and complex philosopher. I want no one to laugh…because I like to think no one reads it.
I feed off the people that surround me. They help hide the darkness and draw from me the energies I have no will to expend. But once they leave, I am alone in my world once more. And I do not want to call them. I do not want to pick up when they call. The mask will return…I cannot show you the truth because you will not understand it.
And this is my repentance. Friends, who I believed to be so close, moving on without me. It is fair. Believe me. How many times did I want to spend him a package in Iraq, and how many times did I opt out of it… Money was never the issue. I didn’t want to send him simple things when my heart was always there with him. Nothing seemed important enough. Nothing seemed to express the fear I possessed everyday for him. The prayers I made for him. Selfish? Maybe not. But it appears so completely so, because I do not believe in the material–but its the world we live in. I know silly things like that don’t matter, but I wanted to show him I cared, and I did not.
And her–the girl who “forgot” a complete year of her life with me. Reading her marriage announcement in the newspaper, my only source, sickened me. The story of how they met reached back into the ages, claiming that her burgeoning marriage spanned across the entire year we shared together and into the present. I guess I deserved it. I only gave her my best friend–forever.
There are so many others. Others that have moved on. Marriage is only a symbol in this particular story, because it is so deeply personal and magnificent. I only wished to know…to know you were making an amazing choice and to give you what I could on your new journey.
Who I am at my core is imperfect and flawed, and I hurt people. Not overtly, but subtly and over time…the calls go unanswered, the phone never rings. I am sorry for what you think, but this is who I am…a monster of the temporal, a master of the moment. Do not doubt for a second I ever left any of you. To him, I remember our times…our kinship and respect. How inseparable we were…how no one could harm you with me beside you. To her, I remember our times…a freeze-framed kiss…my first. How inseparable we were…how nothing meant more to me than you. How you’d creep me out by signing your name with my last name. How I spent my sixteenth birthday with you…
These people, nameless, are symbols too. They represent a question between friends: Have I failed you? Has my parsimony caused you pain? Do you believe me when I say that I never ever left..?
I think I’ll find out his address and send him a belated wedding gift. An envelope containing only a check. And in the memo it will read, “To a new life.”
Because maybe he has begun one without me…
Self-Revelation is Annihilation of Self
Download LinkJedi Mind Tricks - Razorblade Salvation
My last entry was selfish. Reading it the next day I felt extremely sick. I was completely disgusted with myself. I started this page again with one rule: this time it cannot be about me. And I broke that rule horribly.
The first time I wrote like this I was a senior in high school. Each entry focused on the base minutiae of my trite American life. I explained my entire life away. I named names and worse. I touched no one. It was selfish. I told myself that no matter what happened this time I would transcend the patheticisms of my daily routine, that I would write about my world in a way that touched your own.
And with my last entry I failed.
Many people sent me messages telling how much that entry meant to them. Their empathy did me no good. I knew I had failed myself, violating the only purpose I had laid out before me.
It took a good friend to help me realize that. After work I went out for drinks with friends. It was like old times. Bushmills on the backs of Camels, carrying me to land of Jollys and deep sleep. A girl I had taken out on a few dates was conveniently sat next to our table. Our eyes met only once. I smiled–a deep wicked smile. It was the kind of night I was in desperate need of.
After we were done, I followed a friend home to sleep at her place. I did not, do not, feel safe at my apartment. Even now I worry about my car, sitting vulnerably outside my apartment. The hunter’s prey. We arrived at her place and retired to sleep. I collapsed on her bed completely spent–the previous week of overtime and random hostilities weighing heavily on me. She changed and crawled into bed, insisting that I strip down to get more comfortable.
After a few objections, I complied. We laid there and talked. At first about nothing–raunchy jokes and innuendos. And soon we settled into the most platonic of positions, spooning. Innocence. There was no tension, just good friends who happen to differ by one chromosome. The X and Y of our lives. For some reason the closeness of the situation pushed our conversation to intimate levels. We discussed life, religion, love, relationships…
She opened up and I realized she was stricken with many of the same questions that I was. She was pained by her inability to commit, to connect, to love, to care, to simply coexist with someone of interest. She was plagued by questions surrounding her own humanity…our purpose. And I laid there, mostly listening, stroking the one piece of flesh which escaped from the bottom of her shirt. And I thought…
I thought how my last entry was so entirely selfish.
Yes, the last few months have been painful. Yes, I have been tested and tried more than most. But my problems are entirely American and petty: broken windows and computer errors. The children of the world who do not eat tonight would envy my most favorable of woes. Everyone hurts and everyone needs; I am no different. I am truly fortunate that my life is as good as it is. My loved ones are alive, well even. My own body a biological work of genius–breathing without thought, beating without effort, trillions of chemical reactions occurring silently. My mind, although tormented, is sharp and agile–clever does not even begin to describe me.
As I laid with her I realized how similar she was to me. She’s different, so very different. But at our core we both longed for the same things–happiness, harmony, and peace. And is she so different from you? Am I? No. My problems are nothing. My questions unoriginal. My curse uninspiring. We are all trying to get through the day–alone and together.
It was nice. Lying with someone without anticipation or worry. Simply enjoying the feel of skin without fear, and seeing yourself in them, even with your eyes closed.
At one point I stated on this page that I am not a person, but an idea. And I was right then. I lost sight of that. I do not exist in the most traditional sense. I transcended the flesh so long ago. Self-revelation is the annihilation of self. God-consciousness. Zen. Samsara. Whatever you call it…the principle is the same; the idea lives on. And that idea is universal: the recognition of human suffering and kinship with all people. I became selfish and my rage was turned on the very people I longed to help. I lost sight…
I am sorry on some levels. And for what I do not know. I am sorry that I claimed that I had fallen. I was born the Fallen. We all were. That is our story. That is our great commission: to find what has been lost, and gained, and lost again and again and again…
I am sorry that I forgot about what is important. I made it about me, but it is and always should be about you. I do not deserve to be so fortunate. People die every second.
Someone just died.
And again.
And again.
Every second.
Again.
But people are also born. Now. Now. And now.
The cycle of life and death…a macrocosm of microcosm me. And you. We are the Fallen. It took the soft skin and softer tongue of a good friend to help me realize that. I know she did not mean to inspire me, and in some ways that is the most beautiful part. Our night together illuminated the gift of our collective curse so brilliantly. Even with eyes closed…for we do not need eyes to see, only vision, which she granted me so sweetly.
I am Elliott James Griffin.
I am an idea. Nothing more.
And I am sorry for losing sight of that.
A Hunter’s Prey
For the second time since moving to Austin, I have had my car broken into by a criminal.
And besides the shattered glass and bitter cold, I find myself even more calm than the first time. I know things will be taken care of…I know I am going to be out several hundred dollars, again. But there is light…a gated community, a garage, and the answer to my problems.
A friend told me the most true of things. She told me it wasn’t my fault. It never was, and this time is certainly no different. There is crime, and theft, and destruction of property everywhere. But there is a light, and in some ways, she is that light.
I don’t see this event in singularity. I see it as part of a greater arch, the story of my life. I see myself, standing outside on my back porch, drinking a cold one with my best friend David. We’re barbecuing while our wives cook inside. Children, the spitting image of their parents, running from room to room, inside and out. The Cowboys game is on television, or is it the Patriots? And we talk, about everything and nothing: work, the kids, life, vacations not yet taken. And when we sit down to eat together, as families do, we will smile and laugh–regaling tales of youth and circumstance. And this story, the most inauspicious of stories, will be told with a hint of pride. Survival of these years and success we all now enjoy. Crawling through a river of shit, to come out clean on the other side.
You see, it’s about hope. From this burglary to my final years. With her, with them, there is always hope.
Of Boys and Girls…
I’ve been working quite a bit lately. In an extremely real sense, it feels like I have been living up at the office…eleven to thirteen hour shifts, sleep, rinse, repeat. The life of a salesman during the fourth quarter of the fiscal year. Where are my stock options? Where is my complementary turkey or Christmas basket?
So, in lieu of my common nightly activities, which have involved crashing as soon as possible, I have fought against my better judgment and stayed up tonight to simply enjoy time away from work. I haven’t accomplished anything, but I did experience the most profound of epiphanies while talking to a friend…
The whole thing began when she commented on the poem I posted on here a few days back. She told me that she liked it and, being the high school english teacher that she is, went into a brief description of her thoughts. For whatever reason, the exchange made me want to share with her, so I cracked open the digital archives of my life and did just that. I kept giving her more and more of my writings to read…spanning across a number of years in my youth.
She was subjected to the first recorded poem I ever wrote. A terrible piece of garbage latent with emotions and terms I still do not comprehend…so assuredly the little boy who wrote them did not either. And she began to crack into the archive of her own life and share with me the thoughts and words of other times.
And it dawned on us…we haven’t changed one bit. Sure, the writing grew more crisp and profound as the years went on and we grew into adults, but the thoughts at the core of it all were identical to the feelings and emotions we experience today–now, in the present of our present.
If you were to disconnect from the linearity of time and find that small child I once was, his left hand tirelessly scribbling in spiral notebooks and loose paper, you will find the same fears, hopes, and dreams that I still possess manifest within him. He is me, and I have not changed. None of us have. We grow, and we learn, and we cope…but when you distill us down to the raw materials that form our persona, you discover that they are everlasting.Some of the same themes I have discussed thoroughly on this site were tucked neatly into the blurbs of a ten-year-old’s journal: love, rejection, death, redemption, regret…was I too young for these thoughts or was I destined to always feel them?
You see, I was on a date recently and the beautiful girl who sat across from me told me to never change for anyone…to find someone who likes me for exactly who I am. I thought it was a wonderful statement…as it reminded me of all the times I tried to bend who I was for a relationship and ultimately failed. I had decided a long time ago that I would never change for someone again. I was simply fooling myself…I couldn’t have changed even if I wanted to do so. I am Elliott James Griffin. I always have been and I always will be. I am reminded of the book on the legendary King Arthur entitled “The Once and Future King.” The name of the book is derived from the belief that Arthur was born to rule, a preordained right had been entrusted upon him by the Gods and he was destined to be King. And me, the small child writing of love and loss before he knew them, and the man now left in their tragic wake–the once and future king, Elliott James Griffin. Time is irrelevant. This was decided well before I was born. God made me this way.
And he made you in your own way. You cannot escape it and you cannot change it.
The Point of No Return
Tomorrow I must own an obligation that I cannot escape. The line was drawn in the sands many moons ago…the line separating Gods from mere mortals, and a decision must be made. The Piper must be paid. And I must commit to a life I have longed to live for so very long…
Tomorrow I will mark my body. Tomorrow I will brand my soul. Tomorrow I will finally become a Testament.
I will take the first step into a larger world…one without fear, addiction, or doubt. I cannot stop what is happening and if I could I would not want to…this was preordained at my birth when I took my first breath and became dependent upon everything around me.
Tomorrow I will become a Testament. Unless I should die tonight.