FROM: August 17, 2000
once upon a time I had some friends. some lived really close to me and I would go with them to eat french fries and ranch dressing and they watched me grow up and I watched them and there was lots of music and blue and white.
the other friends lived far away and I would call them up at night and cry and twirl my fingers round and round and in my head they were always right there next to me despite their sideways smiles.
then in one summer there was a accident and a ceremony and renewal and closure and running away and the little cookie jar that I lived in cracked open and I was standing on sparkling concrete, holding bags from kmart and staring up at tall buildings, none of which were made out of the familiar spanish tile of home.
back and forth and back and forth and I know people change but I don't like that I can't see it at all anymore. and those who were always far away...I never saw those changes either because I never really saw them, but once you wake up to that fact, it's hard to go back to dreaming. it's better to just put them away.
and those who were close are now far and have become the ones with the sideways smiles or faraway voices and they are faded and only a part of a photo album that I never open because I don't want to miss them anymore than I have to. I知 hoping to forget and replace them with shadowy, imperfect imitations.
most people can remember a good many years back. most people can remember, but not much. I can remember back really far and I remember everything. at night, when the computer screen is turned off and the tv is turned off and the people around me are turned off, my memory clicks on and the movie theatre in my mind starts showing raw footage from my past...and you're not supposed to think about the past that much because if you don't let go of it, you don't make enough room for the future. what if you don't want to let go of it because you're afraid that the future will never live up to the past that (at the time) you weren't always fond of, but for some reason now, it feels better.
of course it feels better now that it's already happened.
but the movie goers don't want to see footage from the past. they want the present or future. they want tangible now that they can gawk at and touch and giggle at...or they want the future that they can dream about and hope and wait for.
in my head, I tell people that I love them and never want to see them hurt and never want them to go away. when those words come out, they don't sound the same and people laugh and punch me lightly in the shoulders and say, "yeah me too" and they think they understand but they couldn't because I don't know how to say things right.
every day I wake up with the adrenaline rush that today might be the last day that I値l have the chance to say that I love someone and what if they never know and get taken away from me before I have a chance to say that I知 sorry for fighting and I知 sorry for scratching and I知 sorry for being selfish and I知 sorry for being young and that their being there was what made it all better.
and that maybe I don't care if it wasn't as important to them as it was to me. maybe I can let myself be that needy.
people think that I知 a certain way and when I say something the way I truly mean it inside, they get embarrassed and don't know where it's coming from. they say, "I致e never heard you talk like that before...I don't know what to say" and I say, "I know. I know."
I want to give back to everyone but I知 having a hard time taking care of myself and fighting back the negativity and I don't want to run out of time before I can thank them the way that I want to. I want to reconnect but I think I lost my chance.
and there are too many airplanes involved.
in my dreams, everything is solarized. pixilated. everything is fading in and out of focus. my eyes dry out at night, but they're wet most of the day.
I don't know if anything that I say is standard human nature. or if it matches up perfectly with some pathetic subculture. or that it fits the psychological profile of someone in need of this specific form of something.
I don't know if I知 ever going to knock down the buildings of pain and only believe the nice things.
I don't know if I知 going to eventually open up a book, look at a painting, ride the subway, drive through west hollywood, have children, go swimming....and find god.
the things I know are things that I don't let myself touch too often because if I touch them too much, my finger prints get all over them and they become smudged, then illegible. then one day I wake up and say, "how do I know for sure?"
people tell me that I should just forget about all this and do simple things. just think and do work and speak and emulate and postulate and showcase. breathe. love. just love.
just love and forget the rest.
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