This place I once called home

I'm sitting in my broken chair, at the desk that's etched with all my high school thoughts and jottings, in the room that I so gladly decorated like a 12-year-old's perfect dream room harmony of magazine clippings, movie posters, and tacky picture frames, in the house I've only truly lived in for 3 short years. I am in Elkhart. I am home (but am I really?)

I used to feel like coming back home should make me feel transformed somehow. Driving my little red car down Spring Creek Trail and turning the corner at the last driveway on the left should be transporting me to the past, and I, much older, wiser, and educated, should walk through the cherry pine doorway from the garage and into the house as an out of place soul. When I spend weeks and months away, the first steps always feel this way. My ego far too changed to find any commonalities in the brand new pricey baskets my mother has displayed all along the tops of the kitchen cupboards. Nothing really looks the same. Just as I do not look the same. Just as I am not the same.

But days go by, I tell you, and as the days do pass the gap between unfamiliar and familiar shrinks. My ego, shrinks. You see I always feel I do the most growing when I'm away from this place, Elkhart I mean. Elkhart is like this forever stagnant cesspool of decaying thoughts and dreams. No one ever goes anywhere worth noting. Nothing noteworthy ever happens. And even in this little house back on Spring Creek trail, among Ox Bow County Park's lush evergreens and the constant chirping of wild birds, I am still affected. The poisonous air that intoxicates every man, woman, child, and animal is still able to seep through the cracks between windows and doorframes of our little ranch home. And I am infected.

Sometimes I am disillusioned into believing that staying in the house with keep me safe from contamination. That the fresh air of Ox Bow's evergreens have enough strength to force clear air my way, that my mood can stay above 50%, that thoughts and ideas can still move freely through my mind, but they don't. And suddenly I'm contaminated before I even know it.

Being in Elkhart makes me feel lazy, ungrateful, boring, and void of any new ideas. It can completely ruin my mood simply by being itself. It's never changing and it's never genuine. I used to love this place before I realized how dutifully it kept me here. It trapped me, made it so I couldn't breath.

The biggest question is, is this poisonous air something that truly hangs as I've suggested, in the air, or does it stem from the poisonous air I breathe out? Is it just so good at keeping things here that it keeps all of my resentment in a little bubble fitting perfectly around me wherever I go? Maybe I just hate it here, and thus a self-fulfilling prophecy is coming into play. I just can't shake the way I always feel like I digress when I'm home. People I at first was able to tolerate, I no longer can. Things I once found entertaining, I no longer do.

I know that nothing gold can stay, but is it too much to ask that my home in Elkhart, the house where I did the majority of my maturing, could keep even an ounce of gold left in it, so that I might be able to hold onto it for the full 2 weeks that I've decided to stay? Because if it doesn't...I think I may go crazy.

This is Me

I posted this originally on april 20th 2009. It's time I read through it again


Electric
I can feel it closing up
The space between
Forces inside of us
Pulling me to you
And pulling you to me

Across the room
Our eyes meet
Boy and girl
Trying to fight the force
The electricity

Feet move forward
We can only obey
Hands reach out
We do the things we want to do
We can’t fight it

Even if it’s wrong
We can’t fight it
Say what you want to say
Hide what you’re too afraid to say
It's out of our control

The words exchanged
The smiles given
It’s undeniable
Nothing can tear apart
The electricity

When I’m standing
With you
The electricity
Takes hold
Of everything.

I've Decided I'm Going to Start Using this More

friction

We were right where we left off
Your words were grinding up against me
churning like a pepper mill
I swept freckled flecks off my chest
only this time when I looked up
it was your eyes that were empty
and mine were green as grass

but as the ice fell to the bottom of our glasses
and our resistance fell to shit
blue would bleed into your empty irises
and need would swallow up
our trembling fingertips
so we could reach out
to latch the rusty hitch

And then the morning after
The center of my chest
was throbbing like a newborn's mind
just trying to absorb
every sparkling stimulus
I couldn't think of anything
no witty pun at your new haircut
or criticisms of the way you clean
your kitchen floor was spotless anyway

So when the autumn leaves rushed
up into my lingering window
brushing my eager skin
as your house went out of view
I knew that everything was different
felt different
felt bigger
than even we could understand

I know you're scared but so am I
these things aren't cast in stone
they crumble when a black cat passes
But even if this falls to pieces
you change your mind or I get bored
there will still be scars
crisscrossing down my chest
from when I tried to get inside
tried to rip apart my flesh
just enough to let you in

But maybe it's enough
Just to know you went for something
that felt like jagged edges
twisting and contorting
tearing at your core
until they wore you down to flawless marble
and afterwards
you still had the courage to try again

Word to the Wise...

...if you want to reconnect with your ex-girlfriend, don't say all the same things you said back when you were an arrogant, controlling, selfish prick. It just makes her think you haven't changed at all.

Nostalgia

I've been trying not to get too sentimental about this year ending, and up until now (the weekend before finals week) it's worked out pretty well. It's easy for me to ignore or overlook the fact that my undergraduate education is over, because I know I still have two more years here. I know at least half of my friends will still be here and a new one will be coming! (love you Bschenk) I know that all of the places that I love here, Bloomington Bagel, the Bluebird, the South Lounge in the Union, all of these places will still be here.

But as this pivotal moment in my life that is graduation is approaching, I'm realizing that I'm not just reflecting on the past four years, but the past eight years, the past sixteen years, the past twenty-three years. You think about who you were at those different times. You think about your goals and your aspirations and you wonder if you're everything you always wanted yourself to be. You wonder if you've made all the right choices, if you have any regrets, if you've grown at all.

There is a part of me that will always be a little kid, of this I am quite confident. There is also a part of me, and of this I am even more confident, that will always be a Hoosier. Indiana University, Bloomington, has been my home for four years. This is where I grew up. It has comforted me in the toughest of times and it has picked me up more times than I could ever thank it for. Honestly, I'm not sure I could have survived the last four years at any other university. The aesthetics of this campus mixed with the energy by the entire student body (even if it is just used towards partying haha) are what make me proud to call myself a Hoosier.

Thanks IU, for 4 solid life-changing years here, and I look forward to 2 more in the future.

Sociology Final Tomorrow

"The individual can only be what is possible within some specifically constructed historical world. But individuals, thus constrained, construct and reconstruct such historical worlds by exploiting the distinctive ambiguities of interaction. They bring with them to each of their interactions a unique and inner self."
-Dennis Wrong

Don't Wait

Currently listening to: "To West Texas" by: Explosions in the Sky (Friday Night Lights Soundtrack)

I've been afraid of death for a long time, I'm sure most of us are in one way or another.

I remember being 7, or very young at least, and sneaking off to my room to cry after Papoulie (Michelle Tanner's grandfather) died on Full House. One of my parents came in a few minutes later and asked why I was crying. I told them it was because Papoulie had died just like my step-grandma had died and that I was afraid to die one day. I barely even knew my step-grandma.

I think death is so scary because it makes each of us re-evaluate our lives in some ways. We don't want to believe that any day could ever be our last day. We think about what we would miss out on, what we would never get to do, and who we'd be leaving behind. Most of us fear death because we're nowhere near prepared for it.

Whenever I think about death I always think about something this really smart guy I know once said, never wait to let someone know how much you care about them. Life is far too short to spend it wrapped up in the unimportant stuff. Live everyday and love everyday and never wait to let someone know how much they mean to you....seriously, go do it right now.

R.I.P. Ryan Kerwood