A Bowl of Stupid

Nota Bene: I struggled with publicly posting this long and somewhat contemplative entry because I don't wish to convey to my friends, family, and/or other readers that I'm in any way depressed, because I'm not. To the contrary, I am settling in here in Bangkok quite nicely. However, I wrote this back in India to pass the time whilst confined to my hotel bed in the final throes of the Dengue Fever. I wasn't feeling quite as 'upbeat' then (although I was, ironically, listening to the same U2 song as in my last post). So I'm posting it, confident others will understand, as I do, that context is everything.

I honestly don't know where to begin, or where I'm going with, this post. I really don't. I'm still a bit fevered still, so I guess I'll just have to talk (or write) it through.

With so much time on my hands lately (see post re: Dengue Fever), after sifting through too many books and movies to even recall, I find myself now at a point where I can do nothing more than lay in bed, listen to my music, and think. It reminds me of how I used to pass the time when I was in high school.

Now, most of my thoughts rifle through memories of the people I've met, the places I've seen, and the things I've done throughout my adult life. For some reason, most of my thoughts begin by centralizing around old friends and past girlfriends.

I use them as 'indicators', since I immediately relate certain friends and girlfriends with different chapters of my life — my formative years, high school, college, law school, working in California, living and working in Miami, and — most recently — my travels abroad.

And then I get distracted, lost even, in recollections about the smaller subplots during those times that gave each of these larger chapters their own particular context and flavour — the different jobs, cities, friends, lovers, hobbies, movies, and music.

When I was younger, this 'meditative recollection" used to be a truly enjoyable exercise. It gave me the opportunity to recall some remarkable things I had otherwise forgotten. However, as I've grown older, it's become more and more difficult to keep track of the ever increasing number of chapters — with more and more characters and subplots lost to time. The difficultly lies not only in the loss of time, but in the accompanying melancholy that comes with the realization I can no longer fully recall people and things which at one time meant so much.

It is for this reason that, while I do not condone, I understand those people who, despite not properly 'fitting' with their friends, spouses, or loved ones, choose to maintain such limited connections simply because it allows such people a greater, more immediate connection with their past. Peripherally, it also helps to limit the number of 'chapters' in their life — possibly to a more manageable level. The less chapters, the less likelihood of remembering JUST how old you are, and JUST how far away those lost years are.

I could of course be wrong, I mean, what the hell do I know?

Fortunately or unfortunately, I am not one of those people. I'm much more demanding and restless. And while this allows me to meet a greater number of people and visit a wider range of places, there's only so much time to maintain friendships … and there's only a limited amount of space in my brain to remember all of those lost years and friends.

No, I'm not trying to recreate my youth. But yes, I do miss it. Very much so.

I miss my youthful exuberance. I miss knowing the better part of my life is yet to come — set out in front of me as a fateful mystery. I miss my old friends. I miss my old girlfriends (even the selfish bitchy ones … okay, maybe not them so much), I miss my old toys — the motorcycles, the cars, the surfboards, the snowboards. And I miss my old homes — the apartments, condos, and houses, and the cities, states, and countries. I miss them all.

And while I'm still glad I had the time to have experience all of those things and I still eagerly look towards the future, I simultaneously curse time for wrenching my past away from me — without my having even noticed.

So that's what I'm doing now — I'm sitting here awake at 3 a.m. in a half-fevered stupor in some shithole in India, listening to U2's "A Sort of Homecoming", trying to think about all the great places I'm heading this summer, but instead lamenting over all of the friendships, places, and experiences I've lost to time.

I know I can't return to those times. And I know I can't recreate as they once existed the close friendships I had before everyone got married, and divorced, and had kids, and got re-married, and moved, and got new jobs, etc., etc. And yes, I am thankful for all of those glorious memories from my past.

But goddamn it, I really wish I could, just for a moment, go back 20 years to that time when I could hang out in my room listening to "An Unforgettable Fire" with my friends dreaming about everything still to come, laid out before us as a glorious mystery.

This just isn't quite the same.

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