As I’ve stated before, at a great many times it seems as though the greatest part of me is what has already transpired.
Tearing down a meandering, blackened highway at night, with the unseasonably cool August wind mussing my hair and contributing to the deafening, screaming silence, I am alone with all that is and all that has been, recorded in clarity in the recesses of my mind. I open the file cabinets, blow the dust off the ancient, faded memories, and place them gingerly in the old 8mm projector to play out again and think of happier times. Even when they aren’t happier memories. Even when they are ringed with the ashes and burns of pain and suffering. Even when the cascade of depression nearly swept me away.
Why is it that I find comfort in the old, tattered, torn, seared, or blood-soaked? Why can’t I be satisfied in the here and now? Why do not even remember the happier memories? I knew where I stood, no matter how much I hated the position. Now, even when I’m happy, each next moment is a mystery, both frightening and exciting at the same time. Each moment could bring irreversible change to my pretty little world, each moment drives more towards chaos and entropy, each moment, the constant threat of emotional dislocation eats away at the edge my conciousness, like a silent devil on my shoulder waiting for the perfect moment to throw a wrench in to the works.
Racing down the stretch of highway I know what speed I’m at, both physically and emotionally, and I know my destination. But I am lost in the moment. I know not my position. It’s Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle for memories.
This last week, my home has become acrawl with the busy little ants of blissfully unaware students returning (or coming anew) to scribble their pointless scrawls in halls and libraries.
And I remember my first day in this expanse of education. My first night away from home, on my proverbial “own”. Well, not really. The year of hell began in the heady, disjointed burst of existence of the last half of my senior year of high school, and ended in the fiery crash of my emotional state near the end of my first semester in college. In between, during the summer of hell, the Great Eight, or my group of high school friends, lived and learned, but mostly lived. It was a month that I will never forget.
It was August, 1999.
After months of emotional lurching, like a car with a loose transmission and a driver not entirely capable of driving a stick, two and one-half months of sandpaper personalities and strained relations finally exploded, and the only relationship that ever had, in my mind, a true chance of flowering into something beautiful, met its end in the span of a few seconds and a poor decision on my part. The next week, a dark argument with my mother ended with me moving out for a month, during the exact time I was supposed to be packing up and reorganizing my 18 years of accumulated little shit and taking my life to a new home.
I’ve never had luck with August. And now, I’m deeply entrenched in August 2004, seeing September on the horizon, creeping towards me all too slowly, watching as my sanity, my neat little life, and all that I know melt away like snow on the desert floor. August has always been the most stressful, difficult, and life-changing month. Kind of ironic then, that the alternate definition of August denotes a regal and awe-inspiring nature.
Kind of ironic, that the very same relationship I spoke of was August Morning Star. Kind of ironic that I still can’t get the hang of Augusts, in all of its forms and definitions.
My momentum is failing. I’m out of gas. I’m lost on an unmarked August highway, stressed to the point of falling apart, overheating, and slamming the gas to the floor, trying to push ahead for all I’m worth. Up ahead, I see a highway oasis, a landing strip for nighttime drivers leaving this highway for a few short minutes. Just a few more miles, just a few more miles, just a few more miles…
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[…] Maybe it’s been the past couple of months, which have made the year of hell look like a cakewalk. […]