new mornings, old nights

Forced to come home earlier than I wanted to. All I found was the remnants of what used to be a house. The most recent Bane of My Existence finally moved out. It feels as if all that is left now are ruins. I have needed this day for the last four months, anxiously awaited it as well, and now that it's here, what do I have? Pained memories of what brought me here in the first place. All the relief I hoped so desperately to find is still terribly far away. Now there's just the cold feeling of a closure that will probably never become complete.

Is this my solace? Is this the beginning of my most recent new life? Nothing but the empty rooms and corners of the life I wanted so desperately to find again on my return home from Seattle? In my hope for redemption and justice I have found only fear and helpless doubt for the future.

In my search for freedom I have found only the ghosts of poker nights and games of dice. Jam sessions carried on much later than necessary. Desperate searches for the one drink that would make sense of the entire day.

I hate myself for my own inability to, as taught, turn the other cheek. To forgive as I would be forgiven. To love without question. All of these lessons I threw out the window to limit, as I saw it, my own suffering. But did I? And how much suffering do I continue to cause others in the meantime?

Picking up the pieces of your own life becomes terrifying when you realize how small and how scattered all those fragments have become. Crimes of Passion never made much sense to me until recently. It's hard for justice to coexist with the human heart.

Against everything I know, I find myself alone looking for that one drink. I know I'll let it pass right by, and instead find that drink which makes all the wrongs right, all the evils just.

I walk through the ruins. I sit in the empty room. I pray for the first time in years. I couldn't even tell you what I prayed for. Maybe just for some small thread of understanding of the "crimes" committed. Some concept of where my own sins crossed with those of the banished. My prayers fell on deaf ears. Eventually, everyone stops listening. I'm left to consider these things with just my own tattered soul as an audience. I shouldn't even be sending this e-mail. All I'm doing here is mourning something that
only I can comprehend.

Inevitably, we become slaves to our own memories. Either cursing them because they can't quite bring something back well enough, or falling prone to them when they make us relive things over and over again. Sometimes, we're caught in between the two — stuck reliving something we can't quite remember or comprehend over and over again.

This is a moment in my life, that's all, and one best forgotten by all. Every old night has given way to a new morning. Every moment given birth to a new moment. Every opportunity gives birth to a new hope. Every trial gives birth to a new opportunity.

But every friendship stays alongside of you like a shadow you can't shake on a cloudy day. Even when you sit in the shade, there's always just a hint of that shadow peeking out of the corner, shifting your own image of yourself, and that's when the doubt sinks in.

back to top