Better Late Than Never

2010 has been perhaps on of the years where I’ve felt most alive. I have been animated with hope; at times, overrun with uncontrollable infatuation; and at others: teeming with the pain of letting someone go. In past years, I put my emotions on mute--I didn’t allow myself to cry, kept virtually everyone at arm’s length and protected myself from being putt into a position where I could be hurt, emotionally or otherwise. This year I began to break out of an emotional hibernation.

To write about a moment where I felt most alive would require me to detail situations that are highly personal to me and, in some cases, to others involved. I believe that part of what makes life’s most important events so momentous is that they’re exclusive. If I were to write openly about many of the moments where I felt most alive, I would cheapen them to myself. Therefore, instead of detailing one specific event, I will offer several vignettes of my feeling alive:

1
Lying on my back, gazing at the faint, scaly pattern of the stucco ceiling in darkened my hotel room, I decided to check my email. Lazily, I reached for my phone as my brother made a quiet rustling, pulling his comforted over himself in the bed next to mine. Resting calmly on the curtains was a hazy orange circle emitted from a lone street lamp outside. The clock read 1:35am and as my email loaded I was surprised that I had received an email from Tim with a completed mix of a song that we had begun recording a few days earlier.

Enlivened, I snapped up, riffled through my bag for my headphones and waited impatiently for the song to load.

Tim and I had originally written this song in my parents’ garage during high school and developed it with our band mates at the time, Beto (on bass) and Patrick (on drums). Patrick passed away in 2003; however, Tim and I were able to find an old recording of us performing this piece almost a decade earlier and were able to sample Patrick counting in the song.

9:05 Tonight by With Ghosts

As the opening riff came through my headphones and broke into the full power of the verse, chills of exhilaration raced down my spine and my memory went wild. In what seemed a fleeting instant, I recalled being a teenager, practicing at the Porter Building in Woodland and running and yelling down Main St with my band, drunk from the inner turmoil of being a teenager. I recalled funerals, heartbreak and so many other poignant moments that occurred between writing that song and my laying in a hotel in Greensborough, NC. Overwrought with emotion, I wanted to jump out of bed and shout; I wanted to spring from my bed and throw my hands in the air.

I looked to my brother--fast asleep. I knew I had to control my verve, so I reluctantly laid back down--smiling quietly to myself and thinking about what this year would bring.

2
Amidst the crisp air, far off twinkle of house lights on the distant hill and the pulsating red lights of a cell phone tower, we stood on top of my roof with arms wrapped around each other. She said she didn’t want to let me go and I was frozen by those words because I didn’t want to let go either. I didn’t want to do anything that could prematurely end this faultless moment.

3
“I’m scared because I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

We were standing outside the BART station waiting for the bus. It had already come and departed two or three times, but she kept hesitating to get on, which made me glad because I didn’t want her to go. When the bus came for the fourth or fifth time, the anxiety of our inevitable farewell had mounted so high, that we said goodbye. After pulling away from our final embrace, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her as she walked back to the bus. Getting on the bus, she couldn’t take her eyes off me either.

As the vehicle departed, I ran after it and yelled, “I’ll miss you” as I waved my hands.

The windows were tinted to dark for me to see if she saw me.

Taking the escalator back up to the train platform, my excitement swiftly turned to sorrow. Waiting for the train, I put my arm against the cold concrete wall, and leaning my eyes into my arm, I wept.

3
Misery hung like a gigantic weight attached to my sternum throughout the day. Several times while teaching, I had to leave the room to take several deep breaths before returning with a bigger and faker smile than before. On the train home that evening I fought back tears, fearing that someone would see. I scolded myself for not bringing sunglasses and averted my gaze from others as best as I could. As I walked home from the station, each step weighed heavier and all my insides were ballooning with water. Drowning. Arriving at my house, I ran up the stairs and quickly shut my door. I tried to hold it in, but eventually acquiesced and collapsed into my bed, doing my best to muffle my deep sobs into my pillow.