Something inside me tells me this is right, but I’ll be damned if I agree. “What the hell am I doing?” I ask myself, over and over again. I wonder if the only reason I’m sticking with this is because I’ve already signed up and if I leave now I’ll be a pussy. I’m nearing the top of the
roller coaster, nearing that single second that lasts so long, just before the sick feeling. You know the feeling, that feeling when you completely regret ever getting on the damn ride but you realize that there’s no place else to go. You’d fly away but you have hands in lieu of wings. Who the fuck ever said that
opposable thumbs were really that grand?
I’m cleaning out my room right now, I’m looking at all the shit I’ve collected over the years here. I’m looking at the oil painting of a bridge in Venice that was five bucks at a garage sale. I’m looking at a little horse that’s painted fire engine red, a sort of inside joke. The Scrabble game that my aunt and I would spend hours playing, even on a school night. It fills me with sorrow to think of all the people that distance has taken from me. I’m sorry Crystal who sleeps now in Arizona, I’m sorry Lori who sleeps now just miles away, I’m sorry Vernice who now sleeps in a pretty white box beneath layers of dirt – I’m sorry to have moved away from you guys, I assure you, it wasn’t my fault.
Time is weird like that, I suppose. You live days, months, weeks, years…and you never think about time as it passes. But it passes. I’m only eighteen, but I have enough knowledge to assure you, it passes. You see your friends grow from pudgy little kids to really strong, attractive men and women. You see your children move from dependents to them being able to cross the street, to them leaving you to become heroes in some war (foreign and domestic). You don’t think about time too much, and maybe it’s better that way, but time will remind you that it exists…be sure of that.
Ahh…so many books I haven’t read. So many stories I never wrote, so many professions of love I never made. I look back and I think, “What the hell was I doing all that time?” And the only answer I can come up with is…nothing. I could’ve had sex by now, I could’ve told someone how much I love them, I could’ve been a published author, but I’m not. Why?
Clichés are funny things. You hear them so often, “Oh how much you’ve grown” – and – “You’ll be grown up before you know it!” And so many others, and there’s a reason they’ve been used to the point of becoming cliched – it’s because they’re true. I saw this little girl today, the daughter of a friend of mine, and she was just a little girl watching Barney. She had the palest blue eyes for being half Puerto-Rican. I could see all of time in her eyes, they were like two orbs of Zon Mezzalamech. I could see slaves bowing to Pharaohs, I saw the building of the Empire State Building, I was in the front row at the first showing of Romeo and Juliet.
Time is the greatest gift the Demiurge has made for us, and it is the most painful curse. On the same train, in the same element of sequence, we see empires rise happily and we see kingdoms fall. In the same breath, the breath you ignore, we see torture and bliss, Mardi Gras and Marquis deSade, Strawberry Fields and the Killing Fields. Time is now the baby or the bath water, and thus do not throw it out. Every second, every torturous second, every fear filled, anguish-ridden second, hold onto as if it were the most beautiful orgasm. Hold onto that second as if you were watching the big bang, the first orgasm.
I guess that brings me to my point, finally, fuck tomorrow, fuck yesterday. There is no joy in tomorrow, only fear of joy ending. There is no joy in yesterday, only the separation from past joys. I promise you that tomorrow the earth will move around the sun and robins will sing. I promise you that tomorrow the grass will still grow and your little baby will still be your little baby. Tomorrow is another day, just like this one, and feel free to make all the beautiful plans you want to. Just, every now and again, think about all the plans you made yesterday and wonder just how much of what you planned to do you did.
Peace.