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The Thoughts of a Weathered Soul...

The sun has risen and set on my thirtieth birthday and I stand at the beginning of a new decade. My thoughts race, as they often do, and the uncertainties of what lie ahead have me wishing for simpler times. My hiatus from the solace I find in the simplicity of a Word document has left me with emotional baggage that is threatening to exceed my cranial weight limit so I finally give in with hopes of purging the depths of my weathered soul.

I’ve gone from Chicago to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Baltimore, and from Baltimore to the beginning of a quarter life crisis. The unfamiliarity of my urban surroundings have me missing the consoling shoulders of friends that have married, gotten dogs, and begun to live out their lives by using sentences starting with “we” instead of “I.” I’ve come to a crossroads of sorts, feeling like subject matter for a John Lee Hooker song. I feel lost in space, wondering if the clarity I was searching for in my twenties will continue to elude me through my thirties. I wonder, often so, if I will ever discover the secret of NIMH in the rat race of life.

When January came to an end I celebrated my third year of sobriety. And although I was tremendously grateful for the gifts that it has given me, I celebrated it with a deep sense of discontentment because I feel like I have stopped evolving. My character defects seem to have resurfaced with a relentless fury as the man that I am trying to be and the man that I am seem to have reached an Old Western-esque impasse. I struggle with my own insanity lately, with the idiosyncratic nuances that comprise my uniqueness. I fight the lawlessness of a creative imagination that doesn’t stay chained to the present. I fight the monumental feelings of inadequacy I have from years of being “less than” and the fallout comes in the form of a tireless and static melancholy.

In A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway wrote, “The world breaks everyone ... those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” I read his words and I don’t know if I am very good or very gentle or very brave. But I do know that lately I feel trapped in the world’s headlock and it’s getting so very hard to breathe. My vision slowly fades as the world tightens its hold and my mind flashes back to a different time, a time where I was young and fearless and where the silver lining of life was still polished. I miss staring at my shadow on sunny summer days and pretending I was twenty-two feet tall. I miss spinning the globe and stopping it with my finger and vowing I would someday go to where it landed. I miss the scared feeling I got when I thought about holding the hand of the girl I had a crush on.

But those times have changed.

Because life is constantly changing. The changing is constant. And the change that comes with the death of an entire decade has me yearning for the comforts that stability brings. So I fill my dishwasher and hang my pictures and curl up in my bed and do my best to infuse familiarity in foreign. But it’s hard. Because in addition to not knowing how to navigate the City of Baltimore, I’m not quite sure how to navigate my thirties. But I will put my best foot forward and continue to walk because the world has not broken me yet.

The world has not broken me yet.

When Niagra Falls...

“Sir, as a representative of the Canadian government, I am refusing your entry into Canada.”

I stood there with a blank look, similar to the one of a baby seal about to get clubbed. And even though the words were coming out of his mouth with a brooding sense of finality, they refused to register behind the bone of my thick skull. I pleaded.

“But sir, I am not the person described in the four pages you hold in your hand. I grew up and while doing so I made mistakes, some of which cost me my freedom and some of which still haunt me to this day. But regardless of how you view me as a person, which you’ve obviously based solely on the papers you hold in your hand, the fact remains that I served every minute of time for each one of those crimes. I paid my debt to society. I suffered the ramifications of those actions.”

His eyes glanced from me down to the documents and back to me as he calmly spoke.

“Sir, look at these charges. Assault. Resisting arrest. Felony eluding. Burglary. Domestic violence. Criminal trespass. The list goes on and on. There are nineteen charges listed here. I cannot, nor will not, allow you to enter Canada.”

I sighed audibly, exhaustedly, and looked around the room. What was I doing here, in this No Mans Land, ostensibly stuck in the small amount of space between the United States and Canada reserved for, apparently, extensive background checks.

The room was brightly lit with windows on all sides allowing the perfect view of both where you wanted to go, and where you came from. The icy water roared violently over the cliffs of the Niagara Gorge before settling down in the Maid of the Mist Pool 170 feet below. The city of Toronto looked peaceful in comparison, gazing down from its perch above the falls, alive with neon blood and casino money.

I scanned the room and settled my gaze upon the five guys huddled in the corner of the room.

“Sir, with all due respect, I ask you to please reconsider. I flew here this morning from Atlanta to meet those guys at the airport in Buffalo. My best friend is getting married and we came here, all the groomsman, to spend a rare weekend together as friends, to gamble, to go out, to celebrate one of the last nights we’ll have together. Look at the dates on those charges. ’97, ’98, ’99, and 2000. I haven’t been in trouble in almost eight years. How can it be that the decisions I made as a confused adolescent be in any way indicative of who I am now?”

The papers ruffled in the mans hands as he looked directly into my eyes.

“Sir, you can return to Buffalo and talk with the consulate about obtaining a pardon. If you return here with a pardon, you will be allowed to pass through. However, should you try to return through the border at any time without that pardon you will be deported, and as a result, you will never again be allowed to step foot on Canadian soil.”

My cause was lost and the sooner I realized that, the better. For me, there would be no bachelor party, no afternoon limo, no hotel overlooking the mighty Niagara Falls. There would be no secrets to keep, no pacts made to cover up the results of my friends blatant inebriation, and no way to get past a past that still finds a way to punish me eight years later.

I fucking hate authority. I hate cops and rent-a-cops and Mounties and security guards’. I hate jails and Customs and police stations and background checks and prosecuting attorneys. I hate the piece-of- shit public defender that convinced me to take the plea bargain that stuck me with this obtrusive felony. I hate fact that I have nineteen charges on my fucking rap sheet but more than anything, I hate fact that I am powerless to change even one of them.

The gray skies outside the building turned even grayer and the Canadian customs agent told me to meet him outside where he would give me my passport and show me how to return back to the States.

I felt like I was sixteen again, and out of all my friends, I was the one with the fake ID that didn’t work. I felt like the guy who goes out in downtown Chicago on Saturday night with sneakers on and can’t get into the club his friends are going to. I felt like I was somehow letting everyone down, like life was laughing at me and reminding me that regardless how many Windsor knots I tie, no matter how many limos I ride in, at the end of the day, I’m still me. I’m still a criminal and an alcoholic, a coke addict and a liar.

I slowly walked away from the counter and over to where Tommy and the rest of the crew were standing with apprehensive faces. The look I wore on mine said it all and with a few short sentences, I explained what had happened, that I wasn’t going with them and that I was sorry. I gave them each hugs; hip-hop half hugs full of attitude and understanding because each one of them knew it could have just as easily been them.

I walked away and through the double doors of the building, into the parking area where my rental car was parked. The wind whipped angrily under the canopy that covered the search area. Bits of icy snow fell sideways. Canada seemed like Oz, a place that I would never be able to get to no matter how hard I tried. I was angry. Unbelievably angry. I wanted to take my rage out on Mounties and anyone else who wore a fucking uniform. I wanted to show them what a criminal really was. I wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, to hit the gas on the SUV go out like a gangster.

I started the car and drove over to where the customs official was waiting. He pointed in the direction of Buffalo while handing me my passport, telling me that I had to stop and check in with U.S. officials before I could get back into the states. I took it, rolled up the window, and drove away without saying anything. Fuck him and his high horse and his French fucking last name. My life is mine and I own every bit of it. I am a criminal and I’m proud of it. I took the road less traveled and paved that motherfucker. I did my time, I paid my debts, I explained to my nine year old daughter why her daddy left. I stood trial both literally and metaphorically for all that I’d done but at that moment I felt no vindication, I felt like a loser.

I drove the short distance to the guard shack and handed the officer my passport and paperwork. He asked me why I got refused, I told him because of my criminal record and he told me to pull around the corner and park.

I slowly pulled forward and bits and pieces of my past came flooding back. I thought about the guys that I had hung out with and how a couple of them were now dead or in prison. I thought about the police chase that landed me a felony, about the .380 semi automatic that I carried with me, and the kid that I jacked for eighteen dollars. I thought about the youth that I had wasted fighting an enemy that lived within.

I thought about my parents...

(To be continued...)

There's No Place Like...

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

- M. Scott Peck

The month of July begins to come to an end and August knocks on summer’s door. Time passes as it always has, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, propelling me forward into a future that seems undeniably uncertain. I struggle with my transition, missing the Second City with each beat of my heart, silently counting down the days until I can once again call Chicago home. I wander through the city of Atlanta and feel like a visitor, a trespassing city boy stuck in a smorgasbord of rural molasses. I absentmindedly search for love in the acquisition of things but find that the black hole inside of me has yet to get any smaller.

Evidently Mercedes doesn’t make band aids.

So in the early morning hours as the airport begins to awaken, I sit and think and type. I yearn for an emotional revelation, a sudden calming of my animated subconscious. I hope and pray that with each click of my Japanese keyboard I might somehow find myself closer to the solace that seems to have been lost in my move. I reread things I’ve written about rehab and the early days of sobriety, words that helped soothe the pain that radical change brings with it. I read the struggle I went through and can still feel the tenacity I used to keep my feet shuffling forward.

Still though, I am deeply uncomfortable.

Because even though long ago I vowed to never, ever live a life of mediocrity, the sacrifice of comfort that comes with the pursuit of happiness can sometimes be all too painful. Change can be all too painful.

In Atlanta, things move more slowly, time moves more slowly. I constantly think about where I am and where I want to be and come to the conclusion that I need to work harder, to work faster, to work longer. Because there are really only two fundamental choices in life: choosing to accept the way things are, or choosing to change them.

So I choose to change them. I choose to not give up, to not grow complacent, to accept change and antagonize it when I can.

Marylyn Ferguson once wrote that “It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear… It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to.”

Right now Linus’s blanket dries and I contemplate spending the nickel and asking Lucy for some advice. I don’t know the next move and the uncertainty of which direction I should lean has me catching a few punches on the chin. I’m discontented with where I am. I’m hungry. I’m restless. I feel the growl of the pitbull inside me and my veins pulse with oxygenated blood. I attack the gym with a ferocity that had lately been dormant and hit the heavy bag until my knuckles bleed and my arms shake with exhaustion. I push myself through the pain, through the walls that stand before me, hoping, praying, wishing that I could fast forward to the time when I’ve grasped all that I’ve reached for. But I know that this thing, this life that has me laughing and crying and wondering isn’t a destination, it’s a journey, a long walk down an unpredictable road.

These last two and half years have gone by in the blink of my sometimes black eye. I’ve been chasing my childhood around, never quite catching it, but chasing it nevertheless. I chase it because I miss it, because like so many others around me, I didn’t know how good it was until it was gone, I didn’t know how much it meant until it transitioned into a distant memory.

Change is hard and when I think about it, I know it always will be. There’s comfort in habits, in familiarity, in the commonality found in friends. There’s a part of me, of everyone, that know that when Dorothy clicked her heels three times and spoke those infamous words, that she was absolutely right. There’s no place like home.

Even when it’s changed.

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