So it begins…

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been wildly fascinated with the idea of keeping some sort of written collection of my memories, thoughts, ideas, opinions and whatever else happens to pop into my head at whatever given time.

I have this grand idea of recording a glimpse into my mind for everybody to see and possibly someday, somewhere, somebody out there will uncover my story and be able to take something out of it. Whether it be knowledge, wisdom, personal reflection, or merely a laugh I hope I paint a picture that some sort of feeling can be transmitted from. I hope somebody finding these recordings can somehow connect with them and gain something from it.

I have this recurring fantasy that could possibly help me explain further. You might think of this as an intro scene if there was to be a movie about my life (very Forest Gump-eqsue)…

Imagine a relative such as my great, great grand-kid or nephew/niece hitting his/her 22nd birthday while driving home for their college Christmas break. They near the end of a lonely, couple-hundred mile drive. A soft snow begins to fall as they begin passing personal landmarks that flood their brain with an overwhelming sense of how far away physically and mentally they have gone from this home town of theirs. The things that used to completely encompass their lives have been put out of sight and out of mind with this new adult life so far away. Yet now they’re back. This place is different in obvious ways like buildings painted different colors, roads paved, trees cut down or freshly planted, yet it still feels very much like home. Like a letter jacket they haven’t worn in years but as soon as its slipped on it lines the slight curves and nuances of their body perfectly. They pull into the hometown party store they used to ride their bike to as a middle schooler. That same scent of Italian pizza dough hits their nose. That same cool-looking Chaldean guy is behind the counter with some serious grey hair coming in. He recognizes their face and makes for some jolly small talk asking where they’ve been. They plant a 12-pack of root beer on the counter next to a fifth of their go-to vodka, order up a pack of menthol cigarettes, a swipe of the credit card, and it’s out the door. As they reach the entrance of the subdivision where they grew up, a wave of emotion hits them. Not a sad or negative type of emotion. An almost out-of-body experience. They’re floating fifty feet above the car watching themselves drive through their old neighborhood analyzing their own mind’s reaction to this influx of memories and their own life’s potential. You could cue the piano loop from that “Place Beyond The Pines” movie when the kid is driving his bike down the winding road and the helicopter-cam is floating above him capturing this breathtaking third person perspective on an otherwise very average activity. As they approach their driveway their phone rings. It’s their parents calling to inform them they’ve been got caught on the other side of the state in a snowstorm and are staying at some relatives for the unforeseeable future. Pulling into the driveway, our main character hops out of some version of a beat up car for this futuristic time period, knowing they’ve got 72 hours at the house to themselves, takes a deep breath of that fresh, familiar air and enters the empty house. A wave of scents hit them. Their brain had once embraced this mixture of fresh cut wood, caulk and new shoes as the default constant for everyday life but now it feels unique once-more as it floods the inside of their nose. It sends a chill down their spine igniting memories of kindergarten when the house was still being built and they’d hang with their brother and sister in the once construction site where the living room now lies. They plop down on their favorite couch in the piano room, crack open a photo album, and with the help of the booze the nostalgia begins to flow. As the buzz slowly kicks in they begin to inspect their former home like an old time detective investigating a crime scene. They somehow wander into the basement and decide its a good idea to grab some Christmas decorations to throw up for their family’s eventual arrival. They creep into the storage area, flip their flashlight on, line the step stool up with the shelf at the back of the room and as they lean over on their tiptoes to grab what appears to be a box of Christmas lights, forward slides a treasure-chest-looking safe of sorts. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to retrieve the bolt cutters from the garage and snap the flimsy lock until the chest swings open to reveal a barrage of personal mementos I’ve left behind. Scrapbooks, awards, degrees, albums, books, action figures, ticket stubs, autographed nonsense. But after a few minutes they slide some things to the side to unveil this very written collection of the words I was discussing at the top of this post. Maybe bound in a leather cover or in a vacuum sealed filing system, who knows, but they would begin to read my story. The tales of my great triumphs and disastrous falls. My feelings and emotions magnified through some scattered, printed, attempt at a blog or book. During this time of growth in their own life, not knowing where exactly they come from or where they belong, they’d be able to delve into my experience, strength and hope and relate to somebody who possibly understands similar experiences. They’d be able to realize their thought process and the similarities among our genealogy. I’ve always had a fascination with my own ancestry and where I come from, who I come from, and where I’ll fall in history. Maybe this person who stumbles upon my tale would hopefully find some kind of motivation and enlightenment from it themselves.

I think a reason I hold onto this fantasy for some is because I wish there was more left from my own grandparents to see what kind of people they were and what they were like when they were my age.

Another reason is my own growing sense of awareness about my personal standing in life, wanting to be known for something great or profound, and my slow realization that maybe sometimes everybody can’t be Steve Jobs or Conor Oberst. Sometimes you wind up as a most famous and highly decorated individual, adored by the masses and known for being “ahead of their time”, to be cherished in textbooks eventually while simultaneously gracing the covers of tabloid magazines with ridiculous abs and a smoking hot wife. Unfortunately, though, a lot of us fall at the opposite end of the spectrum. While possessing an insane amount of talent and potential we find ourselves driving our piece of shit car to our monotonous nine-to-five job just so we can make enough money to pay tuition towards our endless pursuit at some degree that will maybe give us a chance at getting another job decent enough for us to luck out and acquire the sub-par chance at making a positive impact on this world. I will say, however, as more time goes by, I keep realizing credit is overrated and sometimes a feeling or emotion like gratitude or happiness for the time being can trump whatever type of written record or remembrance is left behind. Similar to the saying about doing the right thing when nobody is watching, sometimes you realize an obligation, experience or a feeling right now is what this whole thing is about. Accepting your current place in the world while striving for something better doesn’t mean the message of your life has to be defined to a meaningless, surprisingly low job title and a funny story you’d eventually hear about some deceased relative. Sometimes the beauty in the struggle is what’s so glorious. We all have a story and our current, direct life situation shouldn’t keep us from carrying that story. Maybe that story is what’s important. Maybe love at the time being is what’s important. Maybe the universe viewed through the prism of our brains right here and now is really way better than any written record. I’m almost certain that the tale of our pursuit of happiness is more meaningful than the zeroes in the bank account or what other people think of us. Maybe we shouldn’t care how many twitter followers we have or the eventual likeliness that our name will pop up on Google. Maybe harnessing the struggles and discussing or laughing and learning about ourselves and the intricacies of life is what will propel us to capture future greatness. Maybe what we get from interacting with the Starbucks barista is by far more thought provoking than what we hear from the famous mathematician or rock star. 

Wow.

That being said, this probably seems like a pretty elaborate notion but it always graces the back of my brain when I decide I’m going to really do it this time. I’ll set out to write my life in words. My thoughts, opinions, fears, resentments, history, theories, favorite analogies, the list goes on. I make this proclamation, draft a first post about some personal history and whatever personal events are going on at the time and I don’t find myself back at it until 6 months later only to have forgotten where I saved that last embarrassing attempt at what I’m surely going to do better this time. And of course, history repeats itself.

Well hopefully this blog will help me along with this writing endeavor. Maybe somebody will get something out of it one of these days. Not necessarily my great grand-kid under the ridiculously elaborate circumstances I previously described but just anybody out there feeling like they could use something real to relate to.

But then again, maybe I’ll just have to print this, stow it in a flimsily locked treasure chest under some personal mementos, leave it to my kid and be buried with my fingers crossed.