Memoir

How did we get here? Where we are now? Was it all apart of some plan? A higher being playing a cosmic game of Sims? Or was it the choices we made? I fear I'll never know. What I do know is that I have no earthly right to have these people smiling beside me. I had a choice when it came to where I wanted my education to continue. I chose Franklin Pierce. They had a choice when it came to who they wanted to talk to here. For some reason they chose me. If it is a God's idea of a practical joke, to give me something just so it can be ripped away... I don't think I'd regret this.

It was Halloween night, close to 3 months of getting to know these people, these strangers with dreams and hopes, and pasts of their own. Past's that we opened up to each other about, faster than we knew we should've, but it was just so nice to finally talk about it for once. What about each of us made one another want to spill their guts and bath in what came out? Shared trauma perhaps but this wasn't Alcoholics Anonymous. I opened the Pandora's box that lay buried in my chest, and let them peer inside. They did not shun me. They didn't look at me like I was broken. They actually like me. As it so happens they too, walked the grey line between Darkness and Light. Why can't I remember smiling so often?

We all agreed to get dressed up, There was Holly, as a pig in a blanket. Peter as Starchild Paul Stanley. Stephen, in lieu of a flashy costume just threw on a T-shirt and jeans and said he was Hank Hill. I opted to go as the Devil himself. A part of me thinking they'd get the hint that they were making a mistake when they chose to love me, or was I the one making a mistake for letting them in? Either way, they didn't seem to mind. Instead we decided to take a picture. Now we have this photo, this physical evidence of us four wayward children, Horsemen of the Weird and Unusual. Looking into the cold unfeeling eye of the camera and smiling, like we always do when we're together.

There we are, musicians and teachers, artists and masters of the written word, lovers and fighters all rolled up into a wild untameable flame that can't help but dance with joy as it torches everything around it. We had no business finding one another, yet find one another we did, each of us looking into not just the apathetic eye of the camera, but the very world that's ripped us open and spat into our hearts. It gives one a reason to pause and wonder why everyone is so concerned when a problem lands on the backs of children? We shouldn't have been able to get out of bed in morning let alone smile. So what? What is so special about us that we are so careless towards our oppressors? Whatever reasons we have for pushing on, I think when all is said and done, let it be known that we wore our smiles, and had our fun.