Fighting For It
2005-07-18 4:22 a.m.
�You belong here,� my father exclaimed over his vodka rocks, sitting along side my mother and I at our usual meeting place. It�s where we always meet when I�m in town. Old bar, where everyone knows my father personally and the manager buys us rounds of drinks. It�s the �middle ground� for us, now that my parents live separately in the suburbs and I tend to stay somewhere in the city when I�m in town (usually south side, but this time fairly far north).I�d just finished telling them I�d been considering coming back home for a while. My travels have strengthened me, but more importantly strengthened my yearning for some time in a place where I�m known and loved even by those who don�t know or love me.
Still, I cower from reminiscent conversations that hold ground 8 years or more in the past. I sit amongst these stories of my distant life and listen, with little to add. Sure, it�s mostly because it was all a sauced and stoned blur for me, but there�s something more. I was that boy, but now I am the man he wanted to be. Those days are important, but so far away and those people seem even further. They�ve joined society with minimal dispute, and I�ve still yet to accept what fate the world thinks I should have.
I think back remembering that I�d never had any involved conversations with these people. Not necessarily because I wasn�t close to them, but more because I wasn�t close enough to myself. And they, themselves. It was all good times and general fuckery that brought us together, and it�s odd now, to speak about real estate and parenting and marriage and our stupid ways and 401k plans and early retirement and whatever the fuck else us grown folk tend to speak of at miscellaneous gatherings.
Back then we had long conversations about freedom and justice and how weed is grown and had competitions of tolerance and silliness. I don�t know these people. I know their faces. I know how they apologize to those taking care of them when far too drunk to take care of themselves. I know when, where and why they got their tattoos and piercings. But now they have �lives� based on stability and income and fumbled dreams and a lesser wanting � jaded by their paths.
I�m still lost, but I�m beginning to be able to feel my way around in the dark. These days I tend to confuse my current location. Chicago, NYC, LA, all just stops along the way to whereverthefuck. All just places and faces. So many times this past week, I�ve mentioned �here� referring to some place 1000+ miles away.
I need a home base. I don�t plan on staying in Chicago, but I wouldn�t mind having a place there to call home. A full closet and a desk and some smattering of shit to call mine without wondering how to move it elsewhere. The ability to answer the question �where are you from?� with confidence and warmth. I still have plenty of learning and traveling to do, but I sure as hell wouldn�t mind not having to ship my shit every time I take off on some demented whim.
In my recent travels, I�ve become attached to someone I consider a perfect travel companion. Fun in every way. Not the kind of fun we toss out in a conversation about a movie or a poker game. No, the fun we had when we were too young to understand anything else. The fun we reminisce upon when we ignore conversations about cubicles and planning for retirement and when to start our families. The fun that reminds us of humanity. The pleasure of life itself. That ability to laugh about good times at a funeral and to cry about bad times at a party. That fun that makes us living breathing representations of life.
I�ve done what I can to keep it going and I will continue to do what I can to hold the strap on this raging bull. Those closest to me understand that I am nonchalant with everything except the few things that truly matter to me. And those things hold my undivided attention, and far worse, my stubborn persistence. I never let go of that which I feel entitled to. What is a life not fought for with every drop of blood one�s veins can hope to hold?
And here I am, in Harlem sleeping on the floor of a close friend, grasping at maintaining something so beautiful and inspiring. I would gladly bleed heavily to keep this. We speak each other�s minds to a point of surprise and intrigue. We�re jealous. We�re in love. We�re counting the minutes to �our� demise.
Sorry this post is so all over the place. Rum and Cokes don't hold the focus all that well, and my head always gets a bit twisted when jumping around the country. I wonder how fucked up I'm gonna be when I start hopping around the planet.