Good Or Bad, I Was One Of The Ones

There is no place like home
I agree . . .
Home
I love that world.
I love the feeling of it.
I love the idea that has been famously said, “be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”
And once more, I agree.

I can say that I have lived in different places. I have lived in different apartments and houses.
I lived in different areas, and I have lived in different spots for a decent amount of time.
I lived where I lived, but out of any of them, I would not call too many them home.

My first home was my childhood home. I would call this place home because there was comfort. My Mother’s cooking was here. My childhood happened here and yes, some of this was good and much of my early years were hard for me. I agree.
But my room was my place in this world. This was where I could hide or be myself. There was substance here and memories here, like, say, when my Grandmother used to tell me bedtime stories or how her soft hands could wipe the hair from my eyes and put me to sleep.

I lived on a farm. And no, this was not home to me.
But there were good moments, even during the hard work and the hardest times.
I can say that is true.

I lived in the basement of my Aunt’s house when I was a young man. I was wild then too.
This took place when I decided to make up for lost time and yes, I made up for the lost sessions of young lust because my teenage sex life was close to poor and almost nonexistent.
I lived with my Aunt and my Cousin. And this was nice.
I suppose this place felt like home.
There was something missing. Perhaps this was due to an unnatural mix of my Aunt being like a second Mother to me and meanwhile, Mom moved away.
Maybe this was like another loss.
Or maybe such is life when you’re a young man and learning how to live in the working world.

I lived in a small house with a childhood friend. And this was wild. There were wild parties and wild nights and wild times.
At the same time, I would not say that I felt at home.
I would not have called this place safe or sane by any means.
Fun. Yes.
Safe. No.
I would not call this place home.
No, this was just where I lived for a short amount of time

My life changed after this place.

I lived in a nice house with an in-ground swimming pool in the backyard. I had a two-car garage. I had a nice amount of property and a maid or a nanny’s quarters in the back wing of the house, by the side entrance.
And yes, I lived there. I lived there for a few years.
But nothing was mine.
Nothing was real.
Nothing had value, including me.

I stumbled on a life that I suppose could be a good fit.
But no.
Love was not real and nor was I and nor was she.
nor was this true love or truthful enough on both parts to admit that neither she or I were really in love.
We were both settling for one another.
And to me, there was someone else.
There was always that “someone else” but this one was really “someone.”

Everything in that house (or that life) was more like a mirage or plastic.
I never believed that anyone would actually (or really) love me.
So, I took the trade. I signed on the dotted line and I accepted the deal.

Nothing in that life was mine.
Everything was meaningless and see-through or plastic,
Even the expensive things were like this, as if to mean something on a surface, at best, but there was no depth or worthiness to anything.
Including me.
And perhaps this was just me.
Yes. Maybe it was just me.
But I don’t think so.
I was more like a facade, whereas, yes, this was my life on the surface. But none of this was me.

I lived in this house, but I never felt at home.
And it amazes me because so many people find themselves in this trap.

I never felt the sense of ownership, nor did I have the source to find pride of ownership.
At best, the life I lived was not my real life. And I knew that.
I am a fan of the saying, “no matter where you go, there you are,” because hide all you want, you can’t hide from your truth.
No one can hide from the fact that they settled for less or that they compromised their values for pretty lies that covered an ugly truth.

I knew what happened. I knew I took the wrong turn.
I knew that I did this to myself, and I knew where I took the wrong turn. And I knew where and even why.
Yet still, there I was. 

Acting again.
Pretending.

I have to say it here; this seems more common for people than we think.
I know people who live a life with no love, no hope, and for some reason, they have resigned to the fact that “it is what it is.”
I see people who live their life and act “as if,” or they pretend to be happy.
I see people concern themselves with the outer layers and dress the part; meanwhile, their head and their heart is someplace else, which is fine, I suppose.

I guess it’s fine to be secretly disloyal to both you and to the person you live with.
People do this all the time.

I suppose people do this when they look to settle on something, rather than have nothing.
And, so, people in cases like this eventually find they are stuck in “a life” and next, they are often too petrified to leave or change or switch and be on their own or alone. 

I did that.
I did this too and yes; I swore that I would never let myself sink so deep.
I swore that I would never live so low and if I did, I promised myself that I would never be so weak that I would not dare to climb out from the rut of an unwanted life.

One day, I woke up in a king-sized bed.
I woke up in a nice bedroom. The room was huge too. The morning sun was creeping in the bedroom from the eastern skylight windows by the ceiling.
All was pretty. And all was ugly too.

I woke up in a big bed with a cold and abandoned center. This empty space was like a cold-weather border between two bodies.
The vacant area was frigid, like Siberia in a brutal winter.
Or otherwise, the empty spot between us was so cold that God forbid my foot accidentally crossed the invisible border between my side and “her side.” And God forbid my foot or any part of my body accidentally touched her or any part of her in the middle of the night; I swear, —the thought or the idea of that alone was nearly worse than the fact that not only was I living the wrong life, I married the wrong woman.
I would have slept on the side of the bed because no, I could not get far enough away

I shake my head. . .

We used to have a limousine come to pick us up and take us to the city with her family for dinner. All of us sat like rich people and ate like wealthy bastards.
But somehow, I looked around at the pig-like atmosphere. I looked at the highbrow bullshit and pretentious, arrogant, and egotistical nonsense.
And I knew—
I knew this was not for me.
This was not because I was unfit or uneducated or unworthy of five-star treatment.
And this was not because I cannot fit in with the upper class or the rich.

No, I knew that the people around me were unwanted and unwelcoming and certainly unkind to “the help.”
I remember listening to them speak about the people who worked for them or about those who worked blue collar jobs and I recall how they were referred to as “the help,” and all I kept thinking was, “you mother fuckers realize that I am “the help” too, right?”

The girl I loved but never married told me, “you are better than that” and she was right.
“You deserve more,” she told me.
“You deserve the life you want,” she told me.
“And you can have it,” she said.
But I didn’t believe her.
And why would I?
No matter what we said to each other, neither she nor I dared to be together.
She chose a different life and stayed there.
I chose another life too, and I stayed where I was, just the same.
But at least I left.
She stayed where she was which means either I was the lie
or the lie is bigger than I think

I stayed where I was in different instances because I believed that I was stuck and therefore, I never believed in anything.
I never believed the girl I loved but never married because she lied too.
I never believed in words like “my potential” or the fact that yes, I could break away and stand on my own two feet—and even if I never ate like a king again, or at best, even if my finest dinner came out of a cardboard box, at least I could be happy. 

Happy . . .
Another great word.
Ah, but also, the meaning of what it means to be happy is often too confused.

I want to be happy.
Not acting like I was happy.
And this is not to be confused with a life without wrongs or pain or unexpected downfalls. No, I want to be happy with a life that’s true and intentional and lived for, earned, and paid for by yours truly. 
Same as love is not loving all of “her” perfections; true love is loving someone because to you, their imperfections are like the added seasoning that makes them and their life taste even better.

I spent a summer in a small two-bedroom apartment after my split from my first marriage. 
I have a warm and sentimental regard for this place.

I will never forget the girl who told me that I could have a better life.
I have no way to undo what was done or how to unmarry who I married.
I have no way to relive or relitigate the past.
What’s done is done. Lies were already lied and life already moved on.

I never believed the girl I loved but never married.
She told me that I am better and that I deserved more.
But still, she never dared to make the jump and be with me and nor did I do the same to be with her. At least, not in a way that worked. . .
Meanwhile, she lived the same life with someone else.
Only, she stayed because his constant presence was justified and guaranteed and safe enough that while there were no great highs, there were no great lows either. 

Life like this is just flat with an average happiness, average sex, and an average smile that never had the chance to do special things, like run in the waves of turquoise waters and make love to your true love, like the wild ones do.

But that’s okay.
That’s someone else’s world and their home is their home.
But that kind of home is not my kind of home.
I learned from my falls, which hurt.
I learned from my failures, which killed me both financially and emotionally.

I am a searcher and a dreamer and a wanderer and yes, I have never “felt” the substance of what it “feels” like to be “home!” I never had the chance to touch the fabric and the wooded grains of a home that was made for, built for, and designed for me

I was close. Yes. 
I was close very close and to this; I admit to my disservice.

I was unhappy.
I openly explained that I was unhappy and unfulfilled. However, when I learned that working hard at a job that was otherwise passionless for me, and earning money was more important than my happiness, I started to wither away, piece by piece.
I withered and dwindled and thus, I went back to that idea that nothing is real, nothing is true or worthy, and nothing around me had that texture-like feel of being “mine!”

I want to find my home.
So, ready or not, here I come.
And in fairness, my home does not have to match the standard of previous living. I do not need the high-priced neighborhoods where people compete with the folks next door. I do not need to have greener yards or better pools or gather more square footage to my home so that I can show my success.

I’d be successful enough to find the love of my life.
Bravo to this. And amen as well.
And whether this happens in a home or a small apartment, I think I have grown to know the actual and visceral feel of what it means to say “be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home”

Home.
I want to be that one . . .
more than anyone else
this is the one I want to be.