Things left unsaid

I had some weird Korean dreams last night. They weren't really Korean dreams, I just like the way it sounds sometimes to put Korean at the beginning of something. Like when I have a headache, I'll say "Man this Korean headache is killing me!".

Anyways, my dreams were off the charts and I woke myself up several times yelling or talking to myself. I think the red glow from my heater affects my sleep. This is the first weekend of work since I've been here that I don't have to work so it's kind of odd for me to have all this free time on a weekend. I feel like I should go do something but I'm so tired for some reason. It was a long week. Danielle is moving to a new city and we have been unable to speak for the past couple of days and that's been interesting. You don't realize how used you get to hearing someones voice until it's taken away. We lived about two hours away from each other and saw one another every other week or so and the phone has been our main means of communication. I think it's healthy to have moments of space with any relationship, friend or partner. I was never one of those people who wanted to be around my friends or my significant others all the time. On the flip side of that I don't need a particularly long space of time by myself to feel that I've been giving myself enough "me time" either. Although sometimes I do feel pretty damn antisocial. I have good people in my life though. I have those I talk to every week and those I talk to a couple times a year. I appreciate all my peeps equally though.

As I'm writing this I can feel last night's dreams fading back into the cosmos. I know that they centered around my relationship with my family and I had the realization that they are not going to be around forever. Even if I don't want to admit it to myself I've always had the feeling that I'm going to be around for a very long time. When I was younger and dumber I had this idea that it might be more interesting to die young (not in a suicidal kind of way). I really don't know what I used to think like that but even then I didn't really buy it, even from myself. Life is just getting interesting, it's the greatest gift in all the universe. I think people give it away and take it away all to easily. I do know that most of us (including myself) assume there is time enough.... You can fill in the blank. There's time enough to go back to school. There's time enough to learn a new language. There's time enough to learn how to play the piano. But that's not the case. We have no idea what there is time enough for and that's what makes us so fragile and strong at the same time. Our parents are getting older, time is catching up with our childhood friends, and we are finding it harder to stay in shape (I'll never give up the potato chip...one of my top ten favorite inventions).
I have this vision of what my parent's look like and I'm sure it's wrong. In my head they are the young parents of two small boys living in a duplex on 265 Durand Street in East Lansing Michigan. My good friend Scott Fitzpatrick lives in the adjoining duplex and my best friend Luke Terry lives next door in a house mostly made of wood that always smells of Christmas, even during those humid Michigan summers. Butterball, my cat, still prowls the back yard for giant grasshoppers and I am forced (I secretly love having my brother around at night to protect me from all the escaped killer clowns from the circus) to share a room with my older brother. My very large and thick afro is difficult to manage at times and I love staring at Sa-ray Miller in Kindergarten Class...she will be my wife one day, I am convinced of this. I would marry my best girl friend Dayna but that would be gross. Toby and I eat ants in the back of Ms. White's (soon to be Mrs. Hearts) class to gross out the girls. I find myself getting jealous because Toby's Middle name is Andrew and Andrew Hudson points this out every change he gets. It rains in the evening and this is very exciting because when it stops I will go in the backyard with my flashlight following my dad around looking for worms. We will go fishing tomorrow and catch a million fish. Tonight, I will be allowed to watch a horror movie to the objection of my mom. I'm old enough! But I will end up sleeping between the safety of my parent's breathing later.

But time has done its continuous march and there is not enough of it as far as I'm concerned. I'm 31 and only getting older. Butterball "ran away" later that summer. I think she got hit by a car personally. I have not lived with my parents or my brother for that matter since I was 18 years old. Scott Fitzpatrick, Luke Terry and Toby Lawerence will be my friends for life but I only see one of them on a regular basis. Sa-ray belonged to what I can only refer to as a religious cult and ended up moving out West somewhere to pray...a lot! I am now bald...by choice! I do miss my afro on these cold Korean nights however. Dayna is still one of my best girlfriends and had I known she was going to be as beautiful and smart as she is I would have made my move in Kindergarten. But I missed my chance all those years ago in Ms. Whites class, we are forever friends and she is married, happy, rich and powerful and expecting a baby boy any day now. I don't get jealous of many people these days and my old friend Andrew died late last year. I have not been fishing in years...I do miss it. I hope my dad takes my brothers daughter fishing. Those are memories that should be passed down through the generations. I can still smell what wet earth smells like in the great state of Michigan. I also know my beautiful niece will not escape the William's Family horror movie obsession. Poor girl, I hope she develops a love for them like I have. I'm still working on Danielle. Horror movies have started some heated arguments between the two of us. "It's just a movie babe, it's not real...now please open your eyes and watch the not so nice man disembowel this other nice man." I stopped needing the protection of my parents a long time ago...especially from things that as it turns out do not go bump in the night. I might have stopped need their protection but I think it would not be the whole truth to write I've stopped wanting it. Perhaps a small percentage of me will always yearn for the days when it was that simple.

I think it would be a shame, a damn shame, if the people who helped make my lifes memories didn't know how much I appreciate them and what a special place they hold in my heart.

C