I have
been planning my great escape since high school. Or, at least I have always
been envisioning the prospect of leaving home and never coming back. What if I
just upped and left? No warning. No trace. Just gone. I imagine my sister would
be upset that I didn’t tell her, “but my Little Matty tells me everything!” My
mother would be in hysterics. I mean, she’s a mother, that characteristic is a
given. No real surprise there. My father, well, he would set up his own paramilitary
group consisting of former and/or current military, state and local law enforcement
officers, federal agents (current and/or former) and even any other government
officials that have some sort of experience. Basically, the largest man hunt
known to mankind would happen.
I’ve
lived in the same place all my whole life. The world is too big to just set up
shop in one place. I know I’d be leaving a lot of friends and family behind,
but, starting over has always been a real desire of mine, especially in the
resent months. I’m just fed up with my life and change is needed. A lot of the
people I used to hang out with have either left home, have important jobs, or
are just too burnt out on drugs and just have no clear vision or desire to deal
with life. Why bother? I mean, I have gone out of my way to please people, make
time for people and then, when I want to do something with these people, life
is just too busy (this really excludes those who are doing something with their
lives). I’m now in a position where I’m just in a stalemate with life. I’m
good. I’m ready to move on.
“Fake
it till you make it.” That’s what I’ve been told all my life. Well, I’ve been
faking it and I just ain’t making it. I’ve met a lot of people along the way
and I’ve learned a lot from these people. You sometimes find yourself imitating
these behaviors because, well, it worked for them. But then you meet someone.
This person stands out. They break the mold. They drum to their own beat. And one
day, they look at you with their dreamy eyes as if you mattered and they tell
you the most powerful two word combo meal anyone can say: “do it.”
“Do it,”
has never given me so much clarity in my life until now. Well, not at this
exact moment. I mean, the epiphany already happened for me, it’s just taken a
while for me to get around to this blog (fun fact: the epiphany is January 6th.
Guess whose birthday that is…? Mine, guys! C’mon, reel it in). I wrote a while
ago in blog about dreams. I think they’re important. They give us a general
sense of purpose. Without them, what’s the purpose of life?
I’ve
always dreamt of striking gold in the film industry. I mean, when I was a kid, I
told everyone I was going to be “an actor, a director, a producer, and I
writer.” Damn right, I’m going to write my own garbage I star in. The dream
began when I was a kid. I always had a tough time making new friends. After my
parents got divorced, I did what any kid would do.
My imagination was my escape from the world I
was living in. My sister would often lock herself in her room, which led me to
having no one around. This is the problem when you’re the youngest child. It’s
not that everyone forgot about me, it was that I thought everyone forgot about
me. So, I escaped. I escaped to my imagination and I have been doing that ever since.
When the tough gets going, I get
going. I become a recluse to those around me. I shut everyone out and I shut
down. I’m like a PC. “Welp, can’t tell you what’s wrong, so I will shut down
right in the middle of whatever that was important…” This is a problem I have
always dealt with. Sometimes, that feeling passes by in a few days, weeks, or
months. But lately, I haven’t been able to shake this feeling off. I know in my
heart, that my problems are important for other people to help me overcome
them. But, I feel like they’re so minuscule, that I can’t understand why others
would care.
I remember back in high school, my
father and I got into a huge argument about schools to apply to. I wanted to
leave home in the worst way. I wanted to get out and explore the world. But, my
sister butchered that chance by throwing her college education away. So, when I
told my father I wanted to go to film school, I was told that I can’t. “I can’t”
ruined me and I fell into this dark abyss. But, that was my dream and it was
crushed. So, I road through the currents of life, went to community college,
and just got by. I finally set myself on another path: Public Relations. It was
an up and coming field that had always been around, but it was starting to
burst. So, I went that route. I wanted to make a difference, so I took an
interest in politics. I worked on a political campaign and I found out that
that was NOT what I wanted to do. My heart and desire was still for the love of
storytelling.
I wrote a story about a fictional
version of me running away. I still think about that story to this day, as I basically
wrote about how and why I would leave. Basically, the premise of the story was,
the main character left because of a girl that he couldn’t be around anymore. Every little thing reminded him of her. So, he
leaves. He meets a trucker, who too, is leaving his old life behind. The two
travel a bit when they suddenly meet up and find a girl, who has always been on
the run. The main character and the girl form a friendship and they get close
and tell their deep and intimate secrets to each other. The two characters fall
for each other because of how much they trust one another and how vulnerable
they are without each other. The story ends with everyone mending their old
wounds, except for the main character. He finds himself in a position where he
can’t be happy and he runs away again.
Years later, I look back at this
story and I think, “Wow, I predicted my own future.” The thought of running
away has never been to escape my problems. While some people may look at it as
just that; it’s just not the case. Sometimes, you need to just start from scratch.
More and more each day, I feel this to be the only thing I can do. It’s not
that I hate everyone around me; it’s that I hate everything about myself. I
failed myself because I had vowed not to become this monster. And here I am. It’s
not any easier starting over. It’s harder than fixing problems that may exist.
It takes a strong person to leave everyone they love behind, because those are
the people that matter most. And for me, I can’t bear to watch people try to
fix my problem when there’s nothing that can be done. I might be thinking
selfishly, but look at it from my perspective. I’m not crying out for help. I’m
just hoping you’d understand.
I never really felt I have
belonged. I’ve often joked to my friends about being kidnapped by aliens and going
on a journey across the universe, minus the Beatles acting as my intergalactic
soundtrack. Maybe the Killers, that’s more of my jam. But, sometimes when you
feel out of place, it’s just time to move on. I’ve seen friends come and go
from my life. I’ve tried so hard to preserve as much of them as I can, but
sometimes, you just get exhausted and you find yourself fighting an uphill
battle that was a lost cause from the very beginning. I feel like if friends
end up reading this, they’re going to be thinking how out of the blue this is.
If you know me well enough, I have left plenty of clues along the way. This isn’t
news. So, when I leave, don’t be sad and don’t kick yourself for not trying
hard enough. Just think, “hey, he’ll find his way.” I know I will. I don’t know
what I’ll find, but I’m not going to find it here.
Yeah, one day I’ll leave. Who knows
when, but when I do, I’ll just go quietly into the night…
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