During the last few months of being in college..I was proud, I felt I accomplished something: getting my BA…I was happy…because it was a physical push to be in the new present…but when I got out of college…my dreams became out of touch…plans for grad school fell through because I decided I was not ready..I couldn’t afford it…I couldn’t just do more school because i had nothing better to do…so I put it all away..all the work I did for it…I had a specific school, with a specific program picked out…I had an advisor in mind, I read his books…I dug his work and I wanted to learn from him…I did my research on financial aid…all the loop holes and obstacles of trying to get a PHD…the more I researched, the more I dug myself into a hole of wanting…wanting to get the PHD, wanting that experience…I contacted the school…I talked to grad students…I was ready…I had a thesis…I was in contact with professors: editing my work, reading books, buying books specifically on the subject of Venice in the 1400’s…then I moved back home…something I wanted to avoid because I didn’t like who I was @ home…I felt stuck there…felt like all my growing in the 4 years away from home, supporting myself…it all felt like it never happened when I went back home…and so at home I fell into my pattern…dancing…working…dancing…it hit me pretty hard when the only job I could get straight out of college was at the mall at a fuckin chocolate shop…I felt lucky…at the same time I felt like shit…I felt like all my dreams were slowly fading…the need for adventure, curiosity, growth…started to dim…I stopped dancing…and I distracted myself with booze, drugs, hanging out with pple who party…met a boy…i got hurt…took a re-bound, hurt him…then off to the Philippines I went…to hash out the demons of my home land…only to find that there is so much more than I ever could have expected…my mind blew up…3 months back where I was born…my home…spent time with family…new friends…my father…who I haven’t seen since i was 8…talk about a long distance relationship…but I’m not going into the dad issue…hahaha…I’m talking about being in the present…and here I am re tracing my steps trying to figure out how I got here…sitting in my room dark, contemplating the reality…I fell in love in my home land for the first time in my life…and a tragic ending it was…I left my birth place with a bigger hole in my heart than when I arrived…I came back to CA missing my homeland, missing my father, missing the community I made for myself, missing my new friends, missing my love…most of all…missing myself…I came back to SF scattered, torn, confused, drowning out the pain by trying to process everything…I came back to work at the mall selling chocolate…I was numb…I numbed myself…I couldn’t see what was in front of me…I was so lost in my head that the present could not snap me out of it…I was so lost that I didn’t realize I had fallen in love until 2 months back into the daily grind of America…side tracked…always being side tracked…so here I am now…tracking down where i got lost, where that path faded and I wondered into a strip club…who puts a strip club in the woods? Hansel and grettel didn’t get that shit…they got a house made out of yummyness…what did I get?? America the land of the “free” where they put your grandma on stage butt naked so that she can get quarters thrown at her so that she can give you an allowance so that you can buy hot cheetos at the school cafeteria for lunch…money blinded me more…debt hit…my grace period for student loans ended..and now I had to face that I owed $20,000…so I had to stay selling fuckin chocolate…there are so many avenues of exploitation in this industry…from the farmers, to people like me…employees…so much anger and frustration when I stop to think about the realities we face…poor, working class, striving to find something that makes us feel warm…something to fulfill us…and where do we find room for that in the present?? When do we dream? Because “sleep is the cousin of death” and when we wake we go right back to the ball and chain…I keep thinking, the sooner I get out of the chocolate shop, the closer I am to getting back on the path…but what path is that? Grad school? That road no longer exsists to me…it’s like I’ve always been lost and one road just got me to another road that was not meant for me to take in the first palce…so where are you happy?What does my path look like? Where can I find it? I’ve often gotten criticized for trying to be an island…and folks seem to think no wo/man is an island…but that’s where I see my path leading…my little hut surrounded by lush greenery…eating what I grow, or catch…reading in the shade, in a hammock…painting the landscape…swimming…getting brown on the beach…and watching hella movies…and if I’m inspired enough I’ll make those movies myself…but this dream requires shit I don’t have…and shit that I will never have because i refuse to do the things that enable me to have that…so again…where am I and where am I going? To be in the present…but to be here is to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time…because the present disappears once you name it…because once it is named…it either becomes part of the future or part of the past…elusive…I write because I feel the need to express…an expression that could not be told through visual aides or melodies, color, or flicking a button…I write so I do not forget..i write because it is the record the thinking brain keeps, a paper trail so that the next time I do this head trip I’ll see that I already told this story and that I can expand on something else…to show myself how far I’ve come…because my path Is lost…did I ever have one to begin with? We choose our paths..we choose who we surround ourselves with…we choose how we feel…because our brain created a pattern…different patterns for different situations..but one brain…its all a coping mechanism…a defense for sadness…so that we don’t just keel over and die…because if we did not have reasons to live…we’d be dead…and I guess the most concrete answer I have for myself is: I’m on the path of life until I find death….hahaha…morbid right? Yup…that’s me…morbid at heart until I find distractions to keep me from being so friggin sad…but at the same time…I can tolerate it…I can tolerate a lot of things…and maybe when I find someone to live in my fox hole…we’ll sit on the porch swing eating apple pie and drinking lemonade…I’ll turn to my fox and say “yo, I’m kinda happy, I’m on my path and I like it….” Or maybe when I’ve become hella financially stable I can say the same shit…or maybe…there’s too many maybe’s…and I get stuck in those maybe’s…so stuck that sometimes I become delusional…is that all it is…either constantly questioning or constantly settling until we snap out of the maybe and move on to the next thing???
that hit me hard. i feel how you feel.
ReplyDelete"my path Is lost…did I ever have one to begin with?" i question myself with that everyday.
i like how free flowing all the thoughts and feelings and memories are. sometimes you don't know when one ends and the other begins, and it really communicates the pain, anxiety, frustrations, etc. read out loud, i think it would be a real powerful monologue.
ReplyDeleteu should start a blog. i'd love to keep reading the progress of these thoughts.
I can relate to this a lot. You really did capture all too familiar emotions for me.
ReplyDeletewhere am I and where am I going? To be in the present…but to be here is to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time…because the present disappears once you name it…because once it is named…it either becomes part of the future or part of the past…elusive
This is something i always ask myself too.
i appreciate this piece so much because i'm someone who usually has a hard time talking to people about my mistakes or that i have problems. even though this piece is about confusion and vulnerability, i think it takes strength to be able to admit those things to yourself and others. and in the part where you talk about how you write in order to express yourself, i feel like this is a declaration and validation of your existence despite the confusion you're going through. i like this piece a lot.
ReplyDeleteThe rhetoric questions: some need immediate answers; some we'll keep asking beyond today. Answer three.
ReplyDelete