The following is a personal service announcement. I know the usual catch phrase would be that this is a public service announcement. But this isn’t really public. No, this is certainly personal.
This is a moment of awakening and more, this is a pledge between us.
Just us. Just you and I.
No one else.

And so it goes, right?
The life we live, age, the things we do or say, and the people we meet and the things we love, the things that we see or the things we do are nothing more than elaborate patterns of time. And so it goes.
The seconds become minutes and minutes become hours.
And so it happens. We grow and we age.
Or how does that airline commercial go?
“You are now free to move about the country.”

And so it goes. Some move on. Some people fail to move at all. Some fail to launch and some never dare or try.
Either way, life is an elaborate pattern of times and events.
We look back in awe of how far we’ve come. Or, have we come far at all?
Look how many years have gone by.
Where have we been?
Have we moved from this spot?

I will advise you now that in light of recent news, this one might be a bit tough to get through.
I mean this both literally as well as personally. But at the same time, this might not be for everybody. This is for everybody and anybody who questioned themselves or wondered about their worth.
This is for the person who decided to go, rather than stay. But more, this is about a permanent decision over temporary ideas. Albeit dark and lonely; albeit hard and difficult to get up or get away; and albeit impossible to see an outcome that is brighter than your expectation; this is for you.
I can’t say why or how it is that I’m here now. By all accounts and in spite of my own efforts – perhaps I shouldn’t be.
Perhaps I should be a mark in a column of casualties, but I’m not.
I’m still here, at least somewhat . . . .

It isn’t much though, at least not really. All we are is a series of tiny moments that amass into this thing we call life.
I am offering this to you as a treaty of sorts. I want to place this here for you to hold in trust; this way, you will know something about me. At the same time, you will also have something substantial to hold and to see that life does have the ability to change.

We are a series of times and collection of memories and moments. We have our little trinkets, gifts and keepsakes which we pick up or grab along the way.
We are this.

Sure, I remember the first time I saw someone naked, live, and in person. I remember being a kid and seeing my first dirty magazine. At the same time, I’m not too sure where it began or if it ever began.
I don’t know where the attraction came from, other than I know “it is” an attraction.

I don’t know if I have ever experienced a typical crush. Then again, I’m not sure that I have ever been typical nor do I want to be. Yet, I know there’s always been a draw. There’s always been an attraction and an association.
I know there was a moment once. . .

I suppose what I miss the most are the things that no longer exist. And this is more than my youth. This is more than my ability to recover or to make it through a night without any sleep and somehow, I’d still be able to get to work the next day.
But I miss more than this.
I admit it.
I miss the angst. I miss the misdirection and the yearning to live yet I had only just begun. I had only scratched the surface of so many things that I had yet to understand.
I miss my version of the City. I miss the downtown score and the feelings I had when I was walking down by the unknown and undisclosed theaters where people would do their obscure readings.

There are people who we meet in life and albeit brief or if their stay in our existence is short or only temporary, no matter what happens to us afterwards or where our paths go off in different directions, these people will always be unforgettable to us.

I can see them now.
I can call them old friends and I can say that I knew them in a different lifetime. I can say that yes, we were young and we were wild, but not all of us were young. Not all of us were the same yet we were all going through the same process at the same time.

The following is a thought that I cannot say is all mine; but more, this is a connection to something in my life. This is about a time and a place. At the same time, this is about a movie and my relation to a character. 
I know that my sentiments and my version of the past is not similar to most people.
I know that my life only belongs to me and that the way I see things is only the way I see things.
I also know that there are versions of my life that are not supportive to the person I am now.
I get that.

This is a fact. While some of my facts do not support my best light, this is why I am able to shine as brightly as I do – it’s because of this and because of who I am or where I’ve come from that proves my right to survive.
It is in combination with this and with all of what I’ve seen that I can put this here, for you, to read someday with hopes that this brings you warmth on a cold day.

This place is very special to me.
it’s real and sturdy and while I understand this place has been there long before me and hopefully this hill will be here long after me; there is something so delicate about this place to me – like an article from old newspaper that came from your grandparents house – old and yellow. If you fail to handle this carefully, the paper crumbles and falls apart.

This is a reflection of how delicate this memory is to me.
Beautiful as ever, like a brilliant memory that will live on forever.
I remember this well.

I have not always been sure what it means to be a man, at least not really.
Of course, I know what I used to think. I know about the more commercialized versions of what it means to be a man – or to be strong. Then again, I’m not so sure I know what it means to be strong either.
Least of all, what does it mean to be tough?
Do I even know what this means?