EPITAPH FOR THE "SO FAR"

I read a lot. A lot of non-fiction. Over the last few years, I've banged through a ton of memoirs, recent stuff, older material looking way back. Everybody's got their moments, the ones they recollect whether completely accurate or not. There's a lot of honesty in a joke, that kind of thing.

I'm afraid to write a memoir on my life.

I see the stuff about growing up, particularly in the Midwest. "My father broke his back, but he always came home.", "I'll never forget when I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan", ""Let it Be" changed my life, they were talking to ME."

That's just reactionary. That's all I'm doing.

It's the "we's" that scare me. "We played in front of 500 people that night, and left 'em wantin' more.", "When we lit Redford's face for that scene, he couldn't have been nicer", "We were 9 runs down and came back to win it."


That's where I wanted to go. Not necessarily the fields of endeavor those quotes may entail, but the vibe of "being a part of something." I encourage my son to continue with his metal band, not because I want him to be the next Metallica or Black Sabbath, because I want him to be a part of something. He doesn't see it that way now, but it's creating memories. Good or bad, they will be INTERESTING and thoughtful tidbits to look back on and share years later. It doesn't have to be his career, he's 15, it's building a back catalog of "look-backs".

I know of what I speak, because I don't have many, if any. When people I have known have these great stories to share, I love to hear them, but on another level, I can't relate, and there's a great distance there.

Maybe a distance that is too far to bridge.

A distance I've had with everybody that I've ever met, and every last one of them, I don't know any more. We lost common bonds as well as touch. It's rooted in a lot of reasons, moving too damn much, teenage awkwardness, inability to steadily "get involved" in unique endeavors, fear.

I've been telling myself, subconsciously or not for 38 years that no matter how good something is, or may seem to be, sooner or later, it's gonna break. The bottom's going to fall out and it will be over.

Now if I can self-analyze this way, one would think that correcting that problem wouldn't necessarily be all that far behind.

I hope that's true. But time moves on and I'm still having a difficult time deciding where I wanna go, what dream to pursue, not to mention the after-effects of possibly leaving a job, a position that others need me to have, to chase it down. I'm not blaming those others, for their support and love keeps me sane. I blame myself for missteps in my youth.

Unfortunately those missteps aren't even the variety that one can laugh at after looking back, because quite frankly, they're fucking boring. They're administrative fuck-ups, not the fun kind.

I want to move on. The fork in the road is here. It's a dusty, dirty wishbone in the middle of the woods, smell of pine and rain in the air.

I may have to bed down for a while, before taking that first step.