I figure here is as good a place as any. Today, right now.
I figure I can end this one here with you and leave it at this because today is a celebration.
Today’s an acknowledgement. It’s a day of achievement, yet today is a heavy memory as well.

Now is a good time to find another topic. Now is a good time to start another chapter which is something I’ve been doing consistently for a very long time.
My hopes are to move above and beyond myself. I have told you so much about my life and myself. To be clear, without you or this place and without this stage or platform, I really don’t know where I would be.

Sometimes, you have to be lost to get found.
Or maybe you’ll never know about what’s missing until one day, you find something in this world. You see something that you can’t live without. Maybe this happens all the time or perhaps this only happens once in a while.
Or, maybe this only comes once in a lifetime. Maybe –

I can say that, yes, we all have our times and our moments. I can say that life is like the tides of the ocean, rising and falling, coming in and then rushing out.
I can say that the world is truly cosmic and alive. There are also times when the night is quiet and the sky is filled with stars.
You can see this too, but differently; as if something inside you is awake now and yearning for something more. Of course, I say this with the emphasis on MORE . . .

Get ready. This is neither good nor bad no in-between.
This is a ramble of thoughts without direction. But at least, this is from the heart,
Sure, I’m frustrated sometimes. Who isn’t?
It is zero, four hundred hours and the hours of sleep have escaped me once more.
I am somewhere else, yet I am here, of course.
I am where I have been for such a long time. Only, this uniform doesn’t seem to fit me anymore.
Which means I’ve outgrown this.

It’s time to find a new suit . . .

There’s only a few more days left before I close this journal. But before I go, I wanted to go back to where my so-called life began.
I can still see it, my first real bedroom.
I can see what it looked like the last time I left. I remember the way it was all empty yet there was something still in there. Maybe it was me.
Maybe this was the memories of my youth. Whatever it was, I could feel this inside of me.

I want to go somewhere now. Somewhere different or should I say, I want to take you someplace different. There’s no draw or public knowledge of these places.
I want to take you to a small place in a big world which is really the trick.
I want to find a place with a great bowl of soup or a special item on the menu that no one else knows about, except for the locals, of course.
I want to be somewhere at a place where people smile and say hello for no other reason than to be kind.

So, I’m doing this to make an introduction . . .
I don’t know what she would say if she were here.
Mom, that is.
It’s been a long time since Mom was Mom, which is funny to say because moms are always moms, right?

Even if they are not the best version of being themselves; Moms will always be moms.
I know that whether she could help or not, Mom tried.
In her best way – Mom gave all she could. 

I don’t know if anyone has seen what we’ve seen.
I also have no idea what someone’s take on this will be. But either way, that has nothing to do with this entry nor does this relieve me of my intention.
I don’t know if everyone can relate to the same smells or the same sounds as us.
We see what we see. We live where we live. To us, this might be everything.
To someone else, this could be nothing. This could be weird or strange.
The world is a relative place.

Some people live. Some people don’t.
Or, as Bukowski once wrote, “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”

I happen to agree with this.
I happen to believe that in spite of myself and in spite of our craziness; in spite of the calluses and the tough layers of skin which you and I have had to develop over the years; there is a special tenderness that has developed between us.
I can’t deny this.

Perhaps this might be too much to put here. But yet, I’ll put this here because I have no place left to put it. After all, that’s why I’ve built this place. This little chapel of my own that only exists in the steeples of my mind; yet, at least this exists.
At least I know this is real. At least I know that whether I am in the balconies or the cheap seats or whether I am downtown or uptown or high in the rafters of beautiful existence; at least I know what I have and who I am.
I say this is who I am because I’ve denied this for too long. I’ve denied me and you. I’ve denied my rights. I’ve denied my abilities to meet and greet and to reach or touch anyone or anything in fear that “hey, maybe it’s only me who thinks like this,” so perhaps it’s best not to say anything – least of all to say anything, just to say something for something’s sake. But yes, I have played the fool.

I am eight days and a wake up away from an anniversary. I say it this way because the number of days and the wake up was once used to determine the amount of time before returning to the so-called real world.
I was somewhere about the age of 17 when I was told to write my first goodbye letter.
But that’s not what the anniversary is about.
The letter was a directive that had been given to me by a counselor. I was told to write a goodbye letter to anything and everything in my life that I wanted to leave behind. Then again, this was during the time when the counselor wanted me to focus on the habits which I had been trying to perfect. This was back when I was hiding behind an image of long hair that grew over my eyes.
I was slow-minded and affected by the choices to keep myself dosed with a chemical that had swept around our globe since the beginning of euphoria.