Back then...

I've realized that the more time that I have, the more I talk to myself. Of course when you become a parent you look forward to the alone. You rush to be the one to run to the store, or walk to the mail box, not because of any particular reason other than your own thoughts. They can get lost in cleaning up Jello, or watching Diego go. Today as my girls were out of the house I found myself being nostalgic once again. I don't have a photographic memory, but what I do remember is what people said and the way the said it. I can remember the feeling in the room when my Mom left my dad. I can taste the smoke in my lungs the day she died, and I sweat thinking about the way I was treated in grade school. I'm a big believer in friendship and what it means to love, but I can't say that I've ever been great at either. I don't want to blame my childhood, or the first girl to break my heart, so I blame myself. In fact I created a shield that told everyone else to fuck off. I segregated myself from many because I knew that I would end up having a relationship that I would not, or could not continue. That doesn't mean that so many people in this world have meant so much, just that, as a realist I knew that it wouldn't last. I don't hold grudges when I've gone a lone time in between talking to old friends. Life goes on. Sometimes it doesn't work out, even for mutual friends. I'm sad that there are those I don't get to share a coffee with everyday anymore, or beer every night. And so many of them have such intricate lives themselves you'd wonder where we'd all fit. I've been gone from the west for so long we'd have to hang out and see if we still liked each other. How awkward would it be if we weren't? Would we tell our now significant others how much the other had changed? Would we have changed?

That's what plagued me as I soaked the dishes in the sink, listening to Dave Matthews sing, "stay or leave? I don't want you to go, but you should."( Stay or leave. DMB) Did I have to go? When I left Vancouver so many years ago, was it because I had to? I did. I had to leave. whatever I was then, whatever I had become I wasn't going to evolve for myself if I didn't. I told so many people that I would be back in a month, and never returned. It was one of the only times that I didn't complete what I said I would do. At least based on the fact that I never tried. That guy, that Jamie Hrushowy disappeared deep into my subconscious the day I left B.C. He hadn't been working out the way I wanted. I was in a job I hated, in love with a girl that didn't love me. In fact I think she was just out to torture me. My friends had changed. Some of those close to me didn't like me anymore. My mother had succumb to her illness and passed on. what was there for me? I asked myself that everyday. What is here for me! I hope that sounds selfish, because it was. Who else could I look out for at that time other than me? Fuck it! I'm leaving.

I never told anyone, but I had never intended on returning. I mean I wanted to ideally, but knew the chances were slim. I was never going to be looked at as anything other then what I had created there. Self-centered, womanizing, thinks he's funny kinda guy. Was I still that? I came to realize that it wasn't everyone else that changed, it was me. Change is an important part of our lives. I challenge anyone on theory of evolution based on their own life. If we didn't change where would we be? Some people don't, and live in bliss. The memories of high school keeping them afloat. Under the umbrella of comfort it's easy to remain the same. Yes i started something with an old friends ex. He was mad, I wasn't a friend to him then. He wasn't a friend to me when I needed him. She saw a damaged man pleading to be held. K.N. helped me escape. That time in my life before I left everything flipped upside down. Of course people couldn't understand my choices. She didn't either, but she didn't try to, and didn't judge me.

Leaving town can be a fairly drastic move. I wanted some sort of sign that it was the right move. I wanted to believe that there truly was no life there for me to enjoy. On my trip across Canada there was a good one when I found out that the "girl" that I thought I was in love with, was going to move in with some guy. Perfect! Thank you! Why couldn't you've done that like a year earlier. When I got to the big smoke I was still pretty green. I still thought of Vancouver a lot. I then found out that two of my colleagues at my old job had hooked up and it was getting serious. It was hard not to be happy for them. He was a good man, and she and I were friends for a very long time. She and I had worked together before and we'd always gotten on well. There were few people in that world of mine that I trusted, believed in, or felt for more than her. Late nights of counselling me, I actually thought she was one of the few that had seen past this mask. She'd seen my insecurities. This hardened, hatred that I carried for so long had slid down enough for her to see. It wasn't until years later that I could truly see the person I was, and it scared me that she may have. One night when I had abused as much alcohol as I could I crashed on her couch. In the morning I was giddy, maybe even funny, most likely still drunk. I was who I always was, a goof off. She wasn't. She was falling for this great man. She had changed. She took what was innocent, and stupid as advancing. Few things have hurt me so much. Few words have made me feel so low. I didn't feel bad about KN being a friends ex, because I saw the way she was treated. Of everything that I was. Of everything that I did. It's too bad that I was perceived as someone that would have done that to a friend, and to another. I guess that's who I was seen as, Back then.