This is going to be harder than I imagined

Fenris

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Tue Jan-13-04 01:30 AM
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This is going to be harder than I imagined

I've driven in a circle around this town for the past five months, and I do mean that literally. Every day, around noon or so, I would climb into my small, tireless automobile and drive in a fifteen mile circle around the city, often more than once. There was no music in my car, only the vicious tongues of the right wing, as they vomited forth from my speakers. It was odd, but I had grown to enjoy those Republican radio asshats, no matter how very much I disagreed with their ornery diatribe, and I often looked forward to listening to them. A sin, I know, but there was something about the sound of AM radio, that distinct popping and buzzing, coupled with the strained rhetoric of the hosts that made it comforting. Sometimes I'd drive for hours. Sometimes I'd stay gone all day. It was a sort of spiritual release for me, driving through a town that had become a soulless wasteland for me. I cried a lot at home; I never needed to cry in my car.

What drove me to seek such an unusual and wasteful therapy happened five months ago, at the start of August. She said "I can't be your girlfriend right now," and then she left. To say this was emotionally wrenching is an understatement; my soul was crushed. I had loved her more than I had ever thought possible, and had grand designs for our future in my head. But she left town, and along with her went my heart. Torn away from my happiness, I needed a way to find peace.

So I found the route. It was always the same route. I tried the bottle. It made me sick. I would never seek non-medicinal drugs or cigarettes, as I didn't need to add to my problems. I lived off of Effexor and Xanax for a while, until I got bored with them. I would make a poor substance abuser. I lack the kind of commitment necessary for a full-time, or even part-time, vice like that.

So I drove. And I had my last drive today.

I returned home today and went back to my temporary job, putting my essential possessions into boxes and cleaning up my room. It was difficult deciding what to take. The horrible choice lay in my four lovers: my Danelectro, my Gibson SG, my Seagull S6 acoustic, and my Seagull S12+ twelve string acoustic/electric. I've been brooding over which to take for a month. So I made up my mind: the cheapest comes first. No way am I taking a $900 Gibson to a dorm I've never even seen before. God knows what kind of people reside there. I don't want to see it pawned off so some meathead can throw a kickin' kegger. The Danelectro it was.

I happen to love that guitar, BTW, despite it's low monetary value. It can emulate a Rickenbacker rather faithfully.

So there I was tonight, packing up my computer (my God, the wires), when I hear my sister come in the house and head upstairs, shouting "Night!" to my parents as she passed by their door, which was opposite where I was. As she bounded up the first few steps I called "Bye Val," at her. She reversed her path, came into the study, and gave me one of the hardest hugs I've ever felt, and began sobbing. That set me off too, but I was more restrained. It was sad. I don't ever think I've seen my sister, an agressive, argumentative girl, so emotional. It was heartbreaking.

I recovered quite quickly. I'd sobbed for hours the day before, and it would have been gratuitous had I continued. I needed to calm myself. I didn't want to set off my mother. That will be tomorrow.

I have wanted out of this town since August. But the prospect of saying goodbye to my parents, my only friends for the past months, has made me reconsider, impossible as it is. It began to dawn on me as Val embraced me in the study and cried that this is going to be harder than I imagined.

To my DU friends (if I have any) I must bid farewell, hopefully temporarily, though I do not know. I will miss this place, especially when I stayed up late at night in this quiet house reading threads and occasionally posting. I might return in a few days. It may be a week or two. I don't know. All I know is that I'm leaving home and I am nervous, scared, excited, and morose all at the same time. But I must leave, onward to the academic halls where LBJ once studied.

Neil

I've bookmarked this thread, and any pity kicks would be welcomed.