Far beyond all I know is a me five years from now who has an idea of the world he’s in command of. Someone a far cry from who I am now.
Five years ago, I was going to San Gorgonio High School. Knowing I was going to move soon in December. December 2012, we made the journey from there to here in Cascadia.
Cold Cascadia. My home. Yet in nearly 11 days I will be back in the old country. A ruin. I wonder what advice I’d give 15 year old, unsure of this whole move me.
Before all the discoveries. Before all the relationships between myself and these people and places. Before so much. It’s overwhelming when I think about it but tonight the music has activated that again.
Rehashings of a couple song-based poems are certainly in the future because of it, but it’s 5 hours before I have to be up for a work meeting and I’m swimming in that acidic nostalgia. Should have been asleep two hours ago.
A ruin of every past me keeps me awake. Thinking of all the threads in the web that are severed, probably forever.
That finality goes both ways. If you love and lose, it’s severed. But if you never do, then there is no connection in the first place. Both are mechanically same. One of them needs to be cauterized by time. One is left in the ocean of possibility.
Just an example.
Lately I feel like I’m this machine, thinking of all the disconnections. What is it that I miss? Everything. And everyone I’ve met I explain this to seems to not take it as heavily as I do. They can “move on” is what I hear. What even is that?
If moving on is the idea that you take this regret and silence it, then I’m good. But if moving on is the idea that you never think about it again, I will never move on. These things will only continue to sever, and I’d be doing myself a disservice by letting them be forgotten, especially with my concern on the subject.
Life is a long line of missed calls and smashed down doors. Can never rebuild them, so we worship the dial tone and splintered plywood.
I like to think back to a year ago every so often and wonder if I thought I ever would be where I am at the time I think about it. Did I think a year ago, being embroiled in North Bend and Mount Si and bladed pens that I’d be here where I am? Different job, different relationship, different aspirations, new connections. Do I think I ever forsaw this? No, I don’t. No dream would have come up with this.
Patterns are scary that way. Destiny is never what you think it’ll be. Memories influence the reality you see, and that becomes your destiny. Something new, out of a new memory. A murmur someplace that echoes into your ears, another ruin.
What can I say?
Nostalgia comes and steals my head pretty often. Usually as outbursts of emotion. These days, it’s more of a solemn kind of thought. Just a missing.
I miss everything. And these moods on foggy days make me want to say it, track the memory so I can recall where this reality came from. Still, that doesn’t say a thing about destiny. Just relocations.
When I was 15, I could never forsee this. PHS, Pierce College, five relationships, three jobs, dozens of friends, Olympia, Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, North Bend, Ellensberg, a mentor for the ages, a car, and everything in between. 5 years. When I was listening to my iPod, riding passenger as we crossed through Portland into Washington, I never thought I’d be here. Already enough time to make and break so much.
I posted a photo from my Kindle to facebook when we finally arrived in state, something along the lines of “Welcome to Paradise”. That memory now a ruin.
Sophomore year of highschool, when I rode my bike to class and bought flowers for my girlfriend. Such a far cry from the me that drives around to work, college, and spends time with the person I love outside of those avenues. Social lives, credit cards, rockstar, moving out. It’s all cascading to me when I start laying it out there.
15 year old me could never imagine becoming 20 like I have indeed become. It’s not something I think about often, but it’s out there. Predicting the future isn’t my forte. I find myself wondering if anyone ever thinks of me like I think of them.
And because the past is so easy to know, I miss all that is now ruin.
I write to remember.
Some part of me thought it’d be good therapy to kick this to RR.C this morning as I try to run myself tired. Work meeting in approximately 6 hours. Should probably be asleep.
Nostalgia keeps me awake.
Good night, from Radio Reality City. Hopefully Nostos is kinder to you.
Consume Reality! 