Everything's Different
4.6.03
Ernie's is closed.
Ernie's was this little steakhouse, in my old home town, where my family used to take me out to eat on my birthday. I'm not a big steak-eater, but they had the most awesome nachos and cheese on their salad bar. And as I grew into my high school years, many of the most crucial conversations I had with anyone were at a table in the back room, over a plate of those nachos. They were the kind of nachos you couldn't just have one plate of, either. But they were always meant to be shared... with best friends, boyfriends, sisters, whoever. And now, Ernie's is closed.
A half-hour drive through my old hometown is like a glimpse of 20-some years of memories... and everything is different. The little amusement park a mile from my parents' house, where I spent many of my younger days, is just a skeleton. The little convenient store where I used to buy the best candy, is a heap of rubble.
We pass the house where my high school best friend and I used to get ourselves ready for football games and double dates. Either she got a new car or else she doesn't live there anymore. We pass Winter's Ave., I had forgotten the name of that street, but not the horrible memories I left there. We drive up Broad St., and I know one of those houses on the left is where my ex lived, while he was sleeping with that blond girl when he was supposed to be with me, but I can't remember exactly which one (house or girl). The same damn Christmas tree that they've been putting up at the bank on the corner is still there, even though it's April. I don't think they'll ever bother to take it down.
And of course, on my way back, I can't help but pass by that Carson St. house, where there's the memory of a boy I would have married, if he had been faithful... and the memory of a girl upstairs who used to call off work with me every Sunday so we could stay in our states of bliss and forget how much we hated the world outside of that house. Driving past there is probably the hardest. It was the place where so many things began, and where so many others, ended.
All this town does to me when I come back here is remind me how long its been since I've been really happy. And how screwed up things have been since I left it. And its a sad thought, because this town has nothing to offer anyone. Just a few dingy bars with the same people who've been stuck here forever, and the shadows of places that were cool when I was a kid. I don't know why I keep coming back and expecting things to be the way they were.... Nothing is that way anyone. Not here... not there.
I think there are these defining moments in time where something significant changes your life forever... I don't know if they are supposed to happen, or if we're just fortunate or unfortunate enough to happen upon them. I have too many "what if's" in my life... "what if i hadn't said the things i said, quite as i said them, to my best friend, the day we never talked to each other again?" "what if i hadn't thrown his ring back at him on the boardwalk that day that things were never good again?" "what if i hadn't spent so much time with people who hurt me, over and over?" "what if i wasn't so goddamn blind when it came to the truth..." But they DID happen. And I was right... things can never be the same.
And now Danny and I look blankly into each other's eyes... I'm searching for some sort of sign that will tell me if we're still on the same page here, and I dont really know what he's searching for in mine... I do know that Thursday will change a lot of things, but I also know they've been different for awhile. I think I'm tired of trying to figure out why. It's starting to resemble the past so exactly that it just makes me tired to think about it. I've used up all my tears, i'm sure of that. i'm just tired of waiting for something to happen...
I tried to write an email to someone who I haven't heard from in quite awhile, and the one person who its still easy, despite everything, to pour my soul out to... and I really wanted to tell him about the Flag Cake, which only he would understand, so I won't bother to tell its tale here, but it didn't really matter, because it got returned "inbox full" like it always does and that's maybe the last time I'll bother to try. I wondered if he, or anyone, would remember my birthday tomorrow. I figure not, and it makes me feel all the older. I think I've come to the point in my life where I don't have anything left that really makes me happy, and I've learned to just accept it, instead of change it.
I don't know what the hell I was doing all this time, but now that I've stopped to look around, everything is different. Everything but me. I'm still struggling, I'm still miserable, and i'm still right here where I don't want to be. But everything else... is not the way it once was.
I guess that's what growing up is... you watch your friends grow old and die, you watch the place where you grew up either modernize or fall apart, and you watch yourself turn into the one thing you never wanted to become. This world is all staged... and that's the way it's supposed to happen. You can't stop it. All you can do is try to run from it when you're young, and hope it doesn't catch up with you until you've figured out where you want to end up.
4.6.03
Ernie's is closed.
Ernie's was this little steakhouse, in my old home town, where my family used to take me out to eat on my birthday. I'm not a big steak-eater, but they had the most awesome nachos and cheese on their salad bar. And as I grew into my high school years, many of the most crucial conversations I had with anyone were at a table in the back room, over a plate of those nachos. They were the kind of nachos you couldn't just have one plate of, either. But they were always meant to be shared... with best friends, boyfriends, sisters, whoever. And now, Ernie's is closed.
A half-hour drive through my old hometown is like a glimpse of 20-some years of memories... and everything is different. The little amusement park a mile from my parents' house, where I spent many of my younger days, is just a skeleton. The little convenient store where I used to buy the best candy, is a heap of rubble.
We pass the house where my high school best friend and I used to get ourselves ready for football games and double dates. Either she got a new car or else she doesn't live there anymore. We pass Winter's Ave., I had forgotten the name of that street, but not the horrible memories I left there. We drive up Broad St., and I know one of those houses on the left is where my ex lived, while he was sleeping with that blond girl when he was supposed to be with me, but I can't remember exactly which one (house or girl). The same damn Christmas tree that they've been putting up at the bank on the corner is still there, even though it's April. I don't think they'll ever bother to take it down.
And of course, on my way back, I can't help but pass by that Carson St. house, where there's the memory of a boy I would have married, if he had been faithful... and the memory of a girl upstairs who used to call off work with me every Sunday so we could stay in our states of bliss and forget how much we hated the world outside of that house. Driving past there is probably the hardest. It was the place where so many things began, and where so many others, ended.
All this town does to me when I come back here is remind me how long its been since I've been really happy. And how screwed up things have been since I left it. And its a sad thought, because this town has nothing to offer anyone. Just a few dingy bars with the same people who've been stuck here forever, and the shadows of places that were cool when I was a kid. I don't know why I keep coming back and expecting things to be the way they were.... Nothing is that way anyone. Not here... not there.
I think there are these defining moments in time where something significant changes your life forever... I don't know if they are supposed to happen, or if we're just fortunate or unfortunate enough to happen upon them. I have too many "what if's" in my life... "what if i hadn't said the things i said, quite as i said them, to my best friend, the day we never talked to each other again?" "what if i hadn't thrown his ring back at him on the boardwalk that day that things were never good again?" "what if i hadn't spent so much time with people who hurt me, over and over?" "what if i wasn't so goddamn blind when it came to the truth..." But they DID happen. And I was right... things can never be the same.
And now Danny and I look blankly into each other's eyes... I'm searching for some sort of sign that will tell me if we're still on the same page here, and I dont really know what he's searching for in mine... I do know that Thursday will change a lot of things, but I also know they've been different for awhile. I think I'm tired of trying to figure out why. It's starting to resemble the past so exactly that it just makes me tired to think about it. I've used up all my tears, i'm sure of that. i'm just tired of waiting for something to happen...
I tried to write an email to someone who I haven't heard from in quite awhile, and the one person who its still easy, despite everything, to pour my soul out to... and I really wanted to tell him about the Flag Cake, which only he would understand, so I won't bother to tell its tale here, but it didn't really matter, because it got returned "inbox full" like it always does and that's maybe the last time I'll bother to try. I wondered if he, or anyone, would remember my birthday tomorrow. I figure not, and it makes me feel all the older. I think I've come to the point in my life where I don't have anything left that really makes me happy, and I've learned to just accept it, instead of change it.
I don't know what the hell I was doing all this time, but now that I've stopped to look around, everything is different. Everything but me. I'm still struggling, I'm still miserable, and i'm still right here where I don't want to be. But everything else... is not the way it once was.
I guess that's what growing up is... you watch your friends grow old and die, you watch the place where you grew up either modernize or fall apart, and you watch yourself turn into the one thing you never wanted to become. This world is all staged... and that's the way it's supposed to happen. You can't stop it. All you can do is try to run from it when you're young, and hope it doesn't catch up with you until you've figured out where you want to end up.
