I was just a small town boy in Illinois. Nothing exciting happened, but nothing was ever too boring. It wasn't enough for me. I wanted excitement. The chance to prove that it didn't matter how unassuming I looked, I could be great. This dream faded, but didn't leave me over the next few years.
It seemed like a back handed compliment when I got the news. I was moving to New York. The first thought I had was, "Yes! Here comes the life I want to live up." This thought was replaced by another. One that said, "Now you have to leave everything you have behind." It tore me up inside to think about it that way. I didn't have a choice other than to make my last moments there golden. I did....
I was less than impressed when I got there. It was nothing like the state was glamorized to be. Boring little town with no excitement. No place a potential star could rise. I had lost everything for nothing....so I did the only thing I could do. I fell back into my regular routine. Nothing exciting, nothing for around four years.
When I was twenty-two, I decided to go back to Illinois. When I got back to my old home I realized that not much changed. I went to the swing set I rode so fondly as a kid and I didn't fit on it. "I never fit on it that well anyway." I thought. Not too far away I saw the school I went to. I signed my visitor pass and roamed the halls a bit. I passed by my old classes, easy A's for some, failures for others. The detention room was just as familiar. There I spent countless hours for constantly mouthing off. I figured I'd overstayed my welcome and continued through the town. I went to the pharmacy where I used to pick up my inhaler refills. Ron, the owner, was still working there. He didn't recognize me, but I didn't try to remind him. Instead I walked out the door with nothing more to say. So, I visited my old home. Nobody lived there so I decided to go in. I was in the living room I used to lounge around in. I sat down in my old room right where my old bed used to be. I recalled the countless nights I lay awake dreaming of a life that never came to me. I stood in the empty kitchen that once bore my smiling mother trying to make the best she could out of the scraps she had. When I stepped into my sister's old room I drudged up all those pointless fights we used to have. What was all the point of all the shouting when nobody listened anyway? I stepped into my basement and the time my friends covinced me to drink on my 18th birthday shot into my eyes. I couldn't recall at the moment why I decided to agree, but it must've seemed like a good idea at the time. All the memories were too much to handle. I left the house with tears forming in the corners of my eyes.
It came to me, the reality of the situation. The playground, the school, the pharmacy, and my old home. Nothing had changed. Everything seemed timeless, stuck forever the way I had remembered it. Yet things seemed off. Since every place around me had changed, I realized the only thing that had changed, was me. No place ever changes as long as you hold the memories strongly within yourself. I wish I could say the same for people.
I couldn't believe what had come of some of my closest friends. A few remained the same, but for the most part, nothing was the same. I had a friend, Karen, who had become a crack addict. She was in rehab for her third year now. I didn't go visit her, she probably wouldn't have remembered me.... Joey was now a criminal currently serving a twenty year sentance for three cases of involuntary manslaughter. Apparently somebody's friends were getting too friendly with his girl and he didn' take too kindly to it. Dina ended up homeless after getting pregnant at eighteen (a year after I had left), and her parents threw her out for being such a disgrace. She gave up her son so he wouldn't have to grow up on the street. Lucky him I guess. What hit me pretty hard was that one of my best friends Nathan had commited suicide. We all knew he had problems, but we never expected that.
I sat in my car ready to leave again, this time, for good. But I wanted something to blame for all this. But the only people I could blame was them. The worst came out in them. No self-control, no self-restraint, no self-esteem, all there was was making impressions. Some people call it "growing up", I call it fucked up. Especially to think that those were the people I used to play with as a kid. Now, they're nothing. To me they might as well not exist. Because I prefer to remember them the way I truly felt lke I knew them. As they are now, they're what can bring me to tears. But as memories, nothing will ever compare. If this is really what growing up is, I'd rather be the better part of myself that now only exists in my head. I know I'm in denile, and I'm just dreaming....but I dont want to wake up right now.
