Archive for the ‘This Diary of Me’ Category
On This Most Auspicious of Moments…
….permit me to give thanks to a man who changed my life.
Picture it. Senior year of high school. You stand upon an asphalt track, the circle of your earthly purpose, and you survey the field. Standing amongst the best athletes from around the state, you slowly create fists with your hands. You are calm, still…and nothing can tear you away from what is about to happen. There are three brothers who join you in this endeavor. Together you form a team and you all are the best. First leg, freshmen. Second leg, junior. Third leg, sophomore. Anchor leg, senior.
The announcer steadies the crowd and instructs the runners to take their positions. Your veins are still burning with adrenaline from the preliminary round in which you, and your team, missed setting a record by .01 seconds. You make a fist with your left hand…slowly…staring at it, for within seconds it will be full of cold steel. And you will finish the race. And you will be a champion.
The gun fires. Twice. Panic. What has gone wrong? Judges run up to your teammate, the young freshmen who has grown so much. He looks guilty. The crowd begins to murmur and it becomes clear…he fell out of his blocks. It is over. You are disqualified.
No!
They allow him to reset. Whew. The gun fires again. Once. And they’re off. You watch each stride with a sick anticipation, making sure that the cold steel within your friends’ and enemies’ hands do not touch the ground. And it doesn’t. From freshmen to junior, junior to sophomore, and now…it is your turn. You take one last look at your friend, your very good friend, running towards you…alone. You all are so amazing.
And you run. You run…alone. Turning back you see him still so far behind–you left him as if he were standing still. Your lead is evaporating…victory is still a possibility, but the record will be left for another day. You stop. You just stop and turn to save the day. “Just hand it to me!” Yet the cold steel that you imagined within your hand never finds you. All you remember is seeing it in the air and grabbing at it…not once, twice…but three times. And seeing it hit the asphalt track and roll into oblivion.
And you are me.
It is over. We are disqualified. The race that was never meant to be. The team that was never supposed to win. A state championship…destroyed. A chance to have our names etched into the state record books…gone. I just cried, and cried, and cried.
After the track meet, we went to eat…the team, parents, and our coach. Sitting amongst friends I felt so treacherous. As the oldest, I shouldered responsibility for the entire affair, begging parents to forgive me for robbing their sons. They tried to soothe me, blaming life…blaming chance…blaming everyone but me. But I knew…I left him, and then I couldn’t catch his throw…
When the meal was over my coach and I were left sitting at the table alone. He asked me what was wrong, as if he didn’t know. My eyes swelled with tears again. I told him how I was never good at anything…how I trained and worked so hard to become worthy. Burying my head in my hands, I hid from him, ashamed. In a soft, but stern voice he demanded that I looked him in the eyes. After staring at me for a moment, he grabbed my left hand and, taking out his pen, wrote the most wonderful message on my arm.
I looked at it harshly, deeply. It contradicted everything I had lived for. It told me that the hours I spent working, and running, and sweating, and dying were not important. It stole from me the very purpose for which I had existed for so long. It simply read, “It doesn’t matter.” He told me to look down at his message every time I felt sick or guilty about what happened. He told me to remember, remember that I am going to do amazing things in my life and achieve greatness…and that this moment, right here, right now…is completely insignificant.
The man who drove my passion. The man who created a monster out of me…a 190 pound mass of muscles and arrogance…the man who taught me how to always win, and lose with dignity. The man who loved me for my unwavering loyalty to my teams and my sports…was now telling me how little it all mattered.
I stared at that scribble on my arm the entire ride home. I thought of state records, and medals, and glory, and vindication….of validation and respect, of the girl I wished to impress most…of my Mom and Dad, of my Coach, of former coaches, of friends…enemies…of everyone who doubted me, of that cold steel rolling….
And I always remembered…that it doesn’t even matter.
Thank you Coach Boles. Thank you for creating a monster and taming him. Thank you for always believing in me, for knowing that the puny 140 pound child that stood before you would one day rise to the challenge of Gods and destroy men. Thank you for teaching me more than sports…of life, death, and the world beyond. Thank you for making me understand what it truly means to be a man. But most of all…thank you for letting me go.
Although I will always carry the curse of that day…the what-ifs and the possibilities…I will never forget what you did for me…
Thank you for relinquishing my pain.
On Second Thought…
On the way home tonight from a friend’s house I remembered something very interesting. As I drove I went back in time to the beginning of August of this year. I’m in a bar in downtown Austin…was it the Aquarium…or the Library? I cannot recall. Either way, I’m on the second story talking to a girl I was interested in. We were connecting on a somewhat real level, which is fantastically impossible in that setting. Above the loud music and the drones of the mindless cattle about, we discussed a long list of truly provocative things. And at some point she made the off comment that the aforementioned cattle–college kids and young urban professionals perusing around us–were somewhat substandard…a breed of idiots not worth the resources they consume and energy they burn. She wished they would all just go away–in the most permanent of ways.
And I just stared down at them for a minute. A long and somehow silent moment. And I disagreed.
I told her that each one of these people–covered in sweat and hard liquors, arguing with significant others and friends–were special. I remember telling her that I do not view people like most…that I see each person as a universe, a world of perspectives, thoughts, feelings, and interpretations. I found one sloppy young man who was having a terrible fight with what I can only guess was his girlfriend and I took him into me. My eyes absorbed him fully and I made a million assumptions about him, his life, and his future…and I decided that I hated him.
I pointed him out to this girl and I told her how much I did not like him. His demeanor, the dumb look on his face, the obvious lack of worthwhile thoughts…all disgusted me. But I loved him. He is a universe…a body of talents and vices, a collection of beautiful tragedies…And I loved him for it. Turning from the stage of our discussion, I looked her deep in the eyes and I touched her arm. I do not remember the speech, the most assuredly pedantic monologue, but I do remember the meaning…
If he died…if anyone dies…an entire universe dies. In that instant a history and a future flame out into oblivion. You see…so much of this world is our perception of it, and no two people see “this” the same. And in that way we are so much more than human…we are infinite and omnipotent, we are everything and everyone we perceive. When we pass, a stream of conscious thought is taken and never returned. Everyone…everyone is so unbelievably special.
She stared back at me with a blankness I cannot accurately explain. Her eyes grew extremely moist and she simply stared. I don’t know if she was disseminating the words I had spoken or if she was just confused…but she stared. And it was I who broke the silence…telling her goodbye, that universes of my own were waiting. I told her to have a good life and remember how truly tragic the death of even the most worthless person is.
I didn’t get a number. I didn’t want a number.
When I die, which I will God willing, I want people to know my universe…the world as I see it. I want there to be books written with my name…either gracing the cover or within their folds, explaining the life and times of yours truly. I think about my own death more than most–of this I am sure. But I do not fear it…if it were to face me, I know I would embrace it. But I do fear one thing, and that is leaving this world, the one outside of us, without a mark, without a mission.
Everyone is a galaxy on wheels…and I am no different or special. Yet the reason this exists, this page, this website, this entry, is because I want to be heard. I want to infect you. I want you to think…about me, about yourself, and about everything between us–from the trifling flora and fauna to the stars so far away.
I do not want my universe to end…I want it to live forever, in you and the people you touch.
When I remember that girl, whose world I crushed with the tenderness of thought, I do not see anything but that stare. A constant and wonderful reminder that I had succeeded…I had infected her world.
As I have with your own. Maybe I do always win…
A Thought for the Thoughtful
“I always win.” The personal motto of Elliott James Griffin. I’ve said it to myself so often that over time I’ve come to truly believe it. At first I would say it silently within the safety of my own mind, a wry smile the only clue to the outside world that the greatest of self indulgences was currently gracing me. Then one day I allowed it to slip out…”I always win.” Bold. Daring. Challenging the world beyond my thoughts to prove me wrong. And then it no longer slipped, but spilled willfully from my mouth…
I am Elliott James Griffin and I always win.
Where you would see probability, I would see providence…the willful hand of God awarding his most magnificent creation with the spoils of the material world. Divine preference…an ordained and undeniable truth: I cannot fail. I believed this for the longest of times. I believed that God delivered situations and people into my life because I was special…select…choice…
But today that all changed. I had a brief talk with a friend, and she made a comment of great significance. She told me, with little prudence, that when I see something that I want I do not relent until it is mine. I set my sights on something, someone, and I make it happen. She told me that I essentially will things into being…that my passion and desire forces events to materialize that would normally never.
See, all this time I thought it was God, but it was me. I always win? No. I will to win. And what does win even mean? I met a girl by tagging along to my best friend’s Business Club cookout in college and decided instantly that I would date her one day. A year later it happened. I always win.
But do you see a wedding ring? No. So obviously, I don’t always win. But I wanted her, and for a brief time I had her. So did I win or did I lose? I’m not sure, but my conversation with my friend today really made me think…She made me wonder if I’m wonderfully good at prediction, or woefully bad at following through to conclusion. If I will things into being, do I essentially will them out as well? So many examples come to mind…
My will shines with wondrous light, but for what? For the eventual failure? For that brief moment where I betray my deepest narcissistic thought to the world, proclaiming without hesitation, “I always win!”? For the most fleeting moments of happiness..? I remember laying with that girl I met a year after I had made my bold claim, finally together, and thinking to myself…”I always win.” And now my bed is empty.
I will sleep alone tonight.
I guess I really don’t win at all. I will. My life is the ultimate story of bad timing. So many women, so many times its been the wrong time in our lives. So many opportunities for change, so much bad timing and the same routine prevails. I don’t believe I’ve ever won in my life. There have been great victories…captain of my football team, Speaker of the Senate, and so many other pointless titles that I wanted so badly at the time. So what were those victories? What do they mean?
I feel like I will one day finally understand what it means to win…and I’m not even sure what to expect. Maybe it means saying, “I do,” and meaning it. Maybe its helping a complete stranger at the cost of my life. Maybe its finally being a good brother…
I always win. No, I always will. And I will always will…until the curtain calls.
A Midwinter Night’s Reality
Download LinkYuki Kajiura - I Am Free
In the almost words of Mark Twain…”It is better to stand silent and appear complete than to speak and remove all doubt.”
The stage is set, and the pieces have begun to move…
Now, only God knows.
To My Brother
Download LinkYuki Kajiura - The Harsh Truth
I feel like we don’t know each other. I feel empty. I miss you, but I fear that I’ve already missed you, all of you.
I know we didn’t have the most traditional sibling relationship. I know you had demons and fears and you chose to run. But it kills me, because I feel like you ran from me, from Mom and Dad, from the people who would love you no matter what. You left so early…I was an only-child by thirteen, orphaned by the brother I wished so much to know. I know why you did it. God, I know why you did it. But you didn’t just leave me…you abandoned me.
I needed you. I needed an older brother. I wanted to be a kid brother so badly. Watching my friends and their siblings used to tear my heart to shreds…it was jealousy in its worst form. I thought of you every time David and Brian shared a moment, and when they’d fight. Lord knows I wanted to fight with you…I wanted anything from you.
My greatest fear is that when Mom and Dad die, we will too. I feel like without them, we have nothing in common, nothing to bind us together. I think of you often, and call you less. I don’t know what to say…”Hey, how are you?” seems trite. I know how you are…you are human: happy, sad, elated, dejected, and everything else all at once. I know, believe me, I know.
I feel like I’ve failed you in some capacity, even though you were the one who left me at such a young age. I feel like I didn’t do something…that I was the reason you left. Inadequacy. I could not heal your pain. None of us could. We failed you so much, Ian. I cry when I think about it. I’m crying now. I am so sorry that I could not help you…I was so young, a child, an infant to a life and a struggle I could never understand–even now. Can you forgive me..? Will you forgive me..?
I love you. I don’t know you, but I love you dearly. I do not call because I am afraid to know you. I am afraid to sit down and reveal the depth of my failure as a brother. I want you to live a long life and find happiness. I remember the day Mom called me crying so terribly I was sure someone had died. And someone had. You. Almost anyways. You tried to take yourself from us in the most complete way, and if you remember, in that moment I found the strength to call you. And I was mean…I yelled and told you to stop hurting our family and to stop hurting yourself. “Just do it!” “I don’t care anymore!” “Stop making MY mother cry!”
It was terrible. I am terrible.
If I die before I have the courage to look you in the eyes and tell you all of this with words spoken, know that you are important to me. You are the darkness in the corner of my mind, reminding me of my own humanity, my own struggles and demons. You are also the light, that keeps me hoping…
Hoping that one day I can tell you how sorry I am…that one day I can know you…
I love you. Stay well, brother.
Living Well is the Best Revenge
“I’m too close for missiles… I’m switching to guns.”
What…you thought there was more? I just said volumes.
Children’s Literature and Home
I am currently unwinding from the most unwinding of experiences. I went “home” for the last few days. It was a bit impromptu and doubly rash…but I up and left, returning to the paradise of deep greens–Nacogdoches.
I picked up right where I left off: Old friends, old enemies, and the same choice dining spots (oh Zest-E…I love thee). The greatest part of the trip was the sheer amount of nothingness that I accomplished. And that’s what is so special about Nacogdoches to me…it’s not about anything but love. I was amongst people I deeply and truly love, and I know they love me. The very landscape itself inundated me with the warmth that Austin, for all its charm, could never produce.
I find myself longing for that warmth. The heat of hot nothing. The charm of quainter times and even more quaint “folks.” The hustle of downtown, where driving on bricks is somehow still en vogue. The paradox of traffic on North street (really…why the hell is there EVER traffic). The feeling of leaving your car and house completely unlocked and not fearing anything.
Nacogdoches is innocence. Nacogdoches is home. While returning to Austin, I wrote a girl a text message which she may or may not have cared to receive…it said, “I’m home.” I stared at it for a good long moment and erased it, writing only “Back” in its stead. Whitewright was never my home, and Austin wants so badly to be…but home is where you feel alive, where you feel belonging, where you feel love…
And I feel love when I’m traveling east on Highway 21 and turning left onto University, heading into times already known, times happening, and times still to come.
I will come home. No matter where I end up…I will come home.
Moving Universes With My Mind
My entire life I have been cursed with a recurring dream. This particular phantasm is unbound by the rules that govern its more traditional ilk, haunting me both while I sleep and during the mundane activities of my everyday life. I cannot escape it. Or more precisely, I cannot escape her.
In this dream time does not exist. I find myself Primordial Man, walking unabashed by my own nakedness. Wandering through the flora and fauna of Eden and believing to be the only Soul in existence. And there she is…like a fleeting vision. A wisp of golden brown hair melts into the colors of paradise. And then I blink, the longest of blinks, and find myself a man of Renaissance, in the most precarious of civilizations. I have just gained my bearings when that lustrous hair catches the corner of my eye. I turn to see her and for the first time, perhaps the first time in ages, our eyes meet. I cannot match the intensity of her gaze and my eyes force themselves shut. When I finally gain the courage to open them, it is not her I find, but the dank loneliness of an immigrant tenement. I am disgusting. Judging by my clothes it must be the late 1800s…I attempt to speak and find a tongue I never knew existed. Beautiful words pour forth and for the most intriguing of reasons I understand them…is it Russian? Ukrainian? What is this magnificent disaster spewing from my mouth..? And there she is. Combing her hair, that long sweet hair. She smiles and for the first time I refuse to let her out of my sight. I nearly have to hold my eyes lips open. I am overcome. I ask her name…I think. She pulls me to her with those deep and soulful eyes. I approach her clumsily and she pulls my ear close to her mouth, telling me to close my eyes. I comply so eagerly that the darkness cannot come fast enough, and just like that she is gone, again. This entire universe is gone, and I wake within my bed here and now, in this universe of universes.
A sweat has crept through my skin, a fever of love and lust has stricken my body. Looking to the empty space in my bed I dream of her filling it. Her milky back to me, and that hair…golden brown draped upon her naked shoulders…resting, for nothing in the world come harm her here. I would die to defend her, the woman who’s name I’ll never know. I close my eyes and find myself in Eden again, ripped from this universe and cast into the Great Blunder of our humanity. I am Adam Kadmon, and she will be my Eve. I wander a short eternity and find myself alone, until the sounds of silence draw me away. This harp of wind carries me, closer and closer to her…I just know. And sitting upon a rock, amidst God’s first pond, she sits…innocent and nude, glorious and free. I dive into the water and swim, so furious as if my very life depended upon it…crashing through the water only to find myself in a bath tub, with lukewarm filth all around me. Is this now? Am I home?
No. I am…And on and on and on…
This endless dream; this wondrous illusion. The pursuit of you, whomever you may be. My love knows no bounds, it does not matter, it does not change…only the era. Yes, I may have moved universes with my mind, but in the most truthful of ways, I was always moving them for her.
Maybe one day…I’ll learn her name…and we can lay without words, without clothes, without care…safe and warm, together.
I Shall Meet My Maker…
I have been thinking a lot about my life right now and I have reached the most clear of conclusions: I am being punished.
And rightfully so. Caffeine and nicotine. Words that define my existence. Infidelity, lechery, and hedonism…more words to describe this empty soul. My life is a substance abuse. It is a complete abuse of moral fiber and the mandates of my God. He is showing me the power of Karma and the consequences of dereliction.
I have not been to church since I moved to Austin. I have consumed so much and given so very little back. To the core of humanity I am a parasite, taking and taking without regard to anything else. I feel dirty and pathetic, empty and alone. Oh, there has been love-making, but no love…there has been joy, but no jubilation. I am paying for my sins.
Tomorrow I will attempt to right the ship, as I have so many, many times before. And more of my life may slip away…I do not know. I believe in free will, but I also believe in divine order…which is preeminent? Right now I feel like the most insignificant creation on Earth and bow completely before my Master’s will, or is it whim?
Yet, in this hollow shell of a life I find quiet…and peace. For I know that I will soon meet my maker and repay Him in kind. Forty ounces and a nine millimeter. Truth at the speed of sound. No, I’m not going to kill myself…He’ll have to do that for me.
And then…
The Lacrimation of My Soul
For the first time in years…I feel the need to cry.
I found out this morning that for the second time in my short life I’ve been the victim of identity theft. And as the person on the other end of the phone read legal scripts and followed company compliance with the same coldness that I do vis-a-vis matters of credit and fortune…my body attempted to break down. I shivered and felt my eyes wet…a lump formed in my stomach and fear grasped my throat, silencing words I’d die to shout.
But I resisted. I resist now. Since I’ve moved away from the pine encompassed paradise of far east Texas and into the jaws of adulthood, my life has been unforgiving. I have been robbed, vandalized, harassed by would-be protectors, and now…my name and livelihood jeopardized.
It is at these moments I actually feel weak. And I want to cry. The ushering in of this fall did not only bring with it crisp air and muted sunshine, but a gloom that I cannot escape, infecting my life…
But I resist. I will resist forever…