Post College Afterglow

Nineteen, a hot day in August. My parents move me to Brooklyn in a hurry, but with enough downtime for my father to make annoying commentary. This makes me wonder if his soul purpose in life is to annoy me. My mother is sobbing and my father wants to get home. Unlike other parents, they are not planning on spending the weekend of my orientation with me. I am not aware of it at the time, but my parents expect me to return home in a couple months. Defeated and upset about the way I am treated in this harsh city. There is no reason to prolong this goodbye, when we will be reuniting in a couple of months. My hair is much blonder back then.

Twenty, a cold day in January. I'm in my second year at Pratt and just discovering all I can about myself. I am losing focus in computer graphics and feeling suffocated from having lived in such a small town my entire life. I have met a boy who is introducing me to a new world--sexually. It's all so thrilling and exciting. I wonder how much of it I can explore and how I never really discovered any of this before. I want to have sex with as many different people as I can and I want to try as many drugs that I can get my hands on. I have lived such a sheltered life up to this point and I have this urge. I feel I am so behind everyone else, I need to catch up as quickly as possible. My pants were much baggier in those days.

Twenty-one, a cool afternoon in September. I am a theater major at Brooklyn College. I have part-time job and make good money. I am a mild drug addict. I am a big time sex object. This is the life I wanted to achieve and I could do it all in balance. I was doing it all. The thoughts I had then, seemed so logical. Yet, when I rethink them, they all seem so insane. I went through homelessness, scabies, HIV scares, etc. I had to survive by laughing and realizing how insane it all was. My life was a joke and that was the beginning of the problem. I began to find it more funny than serious. I found a lover who allowed me to be wild, but gave me the support I wanted. My glasses were rather thick back then.

Twenty-Two, a warm day in February. I am becoming a functional stoner. Life is good in so many ways. I've seen the other side of the world and I am almost through with school. I am seeing someone who is less ambiguous than the last man who broke my heart for a little while. I am clean off from drugs. Things are in a solid and comfortable place. My hair was much shaggier and unkempt.

I am on my way to Come Back Little Sheba and I get a phone call. Time changes and I lose focus. The days pass and more information is gained. The certainty of life begins to decieve. The relationship ends. I have no time to reflect on any of the events that have happened in the past few months. I breakdown and lose motivation. I want to sink into nothing. I want to get through because I have to. I don't give up, but my body begins to go into auto-pilot. I cry and brood. I don't know of a day when I can tell I will ever fully trust life again.

Twenty-Three, a hot day in May. I am sitting here in my room. I finished my last final in a record of 30 minutes, I think I did well. All the answers just came to me. I am lost in thoughts of the last five years. The ups and downs. I cannot help it, it had to happen eventually. It's been five years and what is five years in a life that is supposed to last at least fifty? At least fifty, probably more.

How did I develop into this person? I know everyone changes. For better or for worse. It's a journey we all take. Do other people have this simple story? Five paragraphs (maybe six) that you can draw key points, but skip on all the other stuff. There's so much more that happened. Yet, I can't remember it all. I will hold the things worth remembering and I will forget the stuff I wish to forget.

Keep on moving along. Nothing to see here.

Patterns in Life

On this week, a year ago I wrote this:

So really quick cause that's apprently how my life is about to move...

Cause I don't have time to REALL type out an entry I'll just post the email I just wrote to a friend explaining my situation. I'm freaking out right now. But I do love my Post-Script. Even in times of panic I still think about theater.



J,

Its completely understandable, I am sorry that happened. It was sort of sucky, the guy who I was "dancing" with revealed he was totally gay when he spoke with CJ. He didn't even like me enough to talk to me after we shared such a special moment. haha.

So about the actual REAL news in my life. I am trying my best to stay calm, but it was in Philosophy where I started losing my nerve. Neil has mentioned how the lease is up in October. Meaning if they don't let the woman renew her lease, I have to be out soon. I'm trying not to cry but I feel tears coming. I have never felt this tense in my life. Neil is in a messy state, he's nervous as hell and it only made me feel worse. He is all paranoid that the landlord caught on that I was living there (by asking our neighbors) because they're the only people who could possibly know I'm "living" there. And that that may be the reason they're not renewing the lease.

That's what's in his head. What is more reasonable is apprently several months ago some bitchy tenant on a different floor accused Neil of subletting from the woman (they have told everyone they're dating and she is away in Europe for a while) and that she probably complained to the landlord (as people aren't allowed to sublet in that building apprently...I have no real idea. Neil tells me this ALL today) So the woman called and told him they're not letting her renew the lease, but she doesn't know 100% why. So he's feeling this immense guilt trip thinking about telling the woman that I was there for a little bit inbetween apartments. I told him to just play stupid until information is told to him. Also he started freaking out MORE because someone rang the buzzer, no one EVER does and someone came to the door, Neil didn't answer cause he just got that phone call. So in short his stress has moved to me, yadda yadda and I'm about to cry. So I'm trying to just figure out what to do, I'm gonna call Scott when I get home from school to ask about that room and then there's like two other possible things, but other than that I may have to move in less than a month and really that doesn't wear right on the soul.

I'm sitting in class thinking. OMG I need to find a place to move, I need to find time to move and I need to possibly do this in all of about 2-3 weeks. Therapy has to wait it seems and a nervous breakdown in on the edge. I'm in midterms, I've got papers due, I have work to go to, and all this other stuff. Now I need to move, I'm terrified of moving again and having what happens happens. Do you think you'd be able to help me rent a Uhaul when the time comes, there is a place right down the road. I don't want to hire movers again.

Craig

P.S. Did you ever find someone to tak the extra ticket to My Deah? I could have someone in mind. I know that's not really top priority but I was wondering.


I guess if anyone can help me out I would appreciate that, but it's just hope I'm living on.

I realized that this explains why I'm having the issues I'm having right now. A year ago I was in panic mode, the only thing I could think of was staying afloat, staying in the city. I didn't worry about the future, only making it to the next day.

This year being a little less hectic of course it's natural that I'm finding something to worry about that involves future plans. I shouldn't worry, yet I do. It's weird to have had the year I had last year. What's stranger is that marking this week means the year is done officially and these struggles officially become memory.

I am trying my best to keep my spirits up and all that other rut. It's funny that with the marking of this year ending. I look back and see so much that's changed, yet it all seems to little.

This also marks the official entrance of the GC into my life, him being absent for a bit while he was on a trip. Being grateful and helpful to give me a place to stay and help during the hard times. It's not difficult to see why I felt the way I did for him, with the kindness he gave to me. It's also somewhat ironic that he's really no longer in my life at all anymore. Yearly cycles truly are so strange, yet the patterns always prove to be the same.

And thus the caterpillar sheds it's cocoon and becomes a butterfly.