Good Or Bad, I Was One Of The Ones

You hear people ask all the time.
“How does someone let themselves get like that?”
I’ve ask this too. I’ve asked myself and maybe you’ve even asked yourself, “how did I get here?”
How did this happen?

Maybe the answer is far simpler than we think.
I think back about the remnants of this day. I think about the details of a day like this, which happened and took place 34 years ago.

I remember what took place on this day and the days before.
And yes.
I asked out loud, and I wondered why or when did I lose myself?
When did I lose my mind again?
What happened?
Or how did this happened?
How did I fall so far and lose so much?
I think I swore that something like this could never be possible.
To have it all
and then to have nothing.

Fast forward to this morning:
I was asked if I am proud of myself.
I was asked if I realize what I’ve done or accomplished.
And then I asked myself, “what have I done?”

I have bad dreams and nightmares. I have them still, decades later.
I have memories of mistakes that hurt me.
I have names of those who I had harmed or a list of those who I looked to make amends with, and like the step requested, I looked to settle up with them, “except when to do so would injure them or others.”

Life has changed. Or should I say so much has changed.
But then again, life is always moving and nothing stays the same.

Of course, I have to go back to one of my old inspirations that came from a movie that I watched when I was a teenager.
This was a film that made sense to me.
This movie was called The Outsiders.
“Stay Gold, Ponyboy,” has real meaning to me.

I related to the main character. I related to the idea or the feelings that I was somehow in the present, but I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was on the opposite side of so many things.
The friends I had were lunatics.
And so was I.

I was a lunatic in my own way.
At least, in some regards.

I swore that I wanted to lose myself. I wanted to let go of my shell, which were my problems with the imperfections of my exterior.
I wanted to get rid of the feelings and the thoughts that swirled in my head, which made it easier for me to lose myself because I find an answer in a life that came with fleeting rewards.
I swore my flask and the hidden gems in my pockets were my tiny escape pods of mind-bending experiences.

I lost myself to a mask and to a crowd and to an image, which I hide behind like a shield, of course.
And I wore this like a uniform.

I wore my infections too, which were mainly invisible but all too degrading.
No one could see the poisons or the toxins
But I could feel them.
I could feel the abnormalities coursing through my bloodstream and worse, I could hear the whispers of my insecure thoughts that echoed like a dying heartbeat in a vacant and empty chamber.
I spent time with those who were like me. I got high . . .
I did what I did so that I would find a way to laugh despite me and my internal dialogue.

My friends were not all so friendly.
My life was all too imploding.
My friends . . . I shrug at the words.
We all had scars and we all wore the same rebellion. We all spoke the same language.
Or, so I thought.
The age-old sayings, like “keep your mouth shut” and “never rat on your friends” sounded like good things to say until, of course, the lights in a detective’s office are bright on the eyes of a scared little fish who swore they were a shark in the murky waters.
“They” knew everything about me the night I was pulled into the stationhouse.

And as for the murky waters –
The waters you see, and the unknown depths are far more deadly than anyone understands.

I grew up. Or so I thought.
I got away. Or so I believed and then, somehow, I got tripped up.
I found myself back to the beginning again.
34 years ago

I am not innocent, by any means.
I am not a killer nor am I dangerous.
I am nothing like the person I pretended to be.
But at one point, I was that one.

I was that one who people asked, “How did you let yourself get like that?”
I was that kid.
I was that young man.
I was that repeat offender and worse, I found myself in the saddle again.
I found myself lost and back in trouble.

And how?
It’s not like we don’t know the difference between right and wrong.
I knew how.
In fact, I knew exactly how.

Today is not the same for me.
At least, today does not mean what it used to mean to me.
Then again, It’s like I always say when we talk.
Nothing is the same anymore.
Nothing is like it used to be.
Nothing.

34 years ago today.
I walked through the doorways of an old farm.
I lived there.
I worked, ate, slept and changed there too. I left some of my secrets behind and buried the unwanted details in the mountains of an Upstate, New Yorktown called Hancock.

I am not that young man anymore.
Or to be honest, I am not young anymore either.
I am not me, per se, but I am the only person I have always been.

It was 34 years ago.
I was driving through parts of Brooklyn with a .357 under my car seat.
Had the night turned into what it was supposed to be, I would be far different from who I am.

There are some acts that cannot be undone or forgiven.
There are some things that do not go away.
And there are old memories and old scars that come to light.

I do not celebrate this day. Not like I used to.
I acknowledge it.
I am not innocent of squeaky clean.
I have entered a different phase of my adult life. And yes, maybe the downward curve towards my twilight has me thinking differently. Maybe the awareness that life is escaping, day by day, or that time is moving fast, and so—I am more aware now that time is of the essence.

Nothing is what it was.
But maybe nothing is supposed to be.
Hence, I go back to that poem from that movie The Outsiders.

There was a scene which took place at an old church in Windrixville.  

The man characters Jonny and Ponyboy Curtis were talking about the sunset.
I dig sunsets too.
“Nothing gold can stay.”
That’s the main theme of this conversation.
Ponyboy went on to share a poem from Robert Frost.

“Nature’s first green is gold.
her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower
but only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf
so Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down today
nothing gold can stay.”

I am not so sure that I was able to grasp this when I was younger.
I suppose my assumptions and my ignorance and my youth had me believe that life would always provide me with more golden moments. I swore that there would always be a group of tomorrows, just waiting to give me a prize.
I suppose age teaches us that life can, will and that yes, life does dwindle away.

I have never gone back to street drugs and nor will I go back to that scared person I was before.
Am I proud?
I can say that I am grateful.
Am I happy?
I can say that I am working on it.
Am I better now.
Some days, I think that I am.
Some days I am better than ever.

Other days, I think to myself . . .
I understand why we slip away from ourselves, — or why we look to escape, to feel better, or to find some mindless way to entertain our thoughts before we lose our head to our mass gadgets of mild insanity.

I am not where I want to be.
Not by any means. . .
But I will be.
Know how I know?
Because somehow, I am still here and somehow, so are you.

Crazy to think  . . .
34 years ago was the last time I was on “that shit” and yet this is so far away from me.
I am aware and I remember this very well

Still . . .

Ya hear that Pop.
I did just like you said to do.

I promise.