2004-10-11 - 9:28 p.m.
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The Unknown holds so much more than the drawl of knowing what's to come
Silence.
Silence can mean many things.
There are some times where silence is the only answer, where you can only be right if there is no sound.
There are many more of these times than you�d imagine; it�s just that people usually fuck up by opening their mouth and think that what they said was wrong when in fact what was wrong was anything being said.
Some times, silence is the treacherous backdrop for thought, the winding gears and spinning whistles that blow off behind each of our eyes. We watch, we take mental notes, we scream inside our heads and while the outside appears calm and subtle, the inside machinations violently erupt in explosive grandeur. In fact, this is the most dangerous silence of all, because it is all encompassing. It is enveloping � it swallows whole the person who let�s themselves feed this compulsive beast of want and need. It devours the same housing it lives in, thrives on the demise of the inhabitant.
Thoughts will one day eat you unless you let them out to become actions.
I�ve sat dormant, sat idly by, as the days meandered and broke, as the sun spun wildly and quickly around me, reminding me yet again I just died one day. I just stopped living for one day�s time. It�s gone.
A year from now, I will be moving to Arizona. Tempe, Arizona to be exact. And that�s about as exact as it gets. I don�t have a game plan just yet. In fact, I doubt I�ll have one for some time. I don�t plan on shutting the lights off here and just picking up tomorrow, closing the doors to my adolescence and wandering through the vapid adult landscape of my future. I have yet to blueprint my footsteps, yet to foresee my own course of actions. I basically am winging it, like any well built plan, as I go. I�m not going to make much sense. I�m not going to seem right. People will look at me and become ashamed because I�m blindly throwing my life away or enraged because they feel I won�t miss them and will just run off like a madman loose on the world, forgetting all behind me.
This is simply not true.
The only fact that remains as to why I am leaving and why I will continue to plan to leave is a simple one: my fear of dying numb. I fear that this hole of an island is sucking at me, slowly taking away each precious breath I breathe and giving me back nothing to show for it. While I don�t forget the family, the friends, the people I care about, the people I never see and wish I did, the people I see all the time and wish I didn�t and all others in between that have only been shown to me as a direct result of living where I do live now, I don�t see it as losing them. I don�t see me moving away from here as escaping them or leaving them behind. In fact, I�ll be willing to bet that if I moved away for a year�s time and came back, everyone who I�d miss would still be here, still plugging away, still scratching upwards in a struggle, in a climb to the top of the pile of shit they live at the bottom of. And while I can�t foresee myself being successful, it would be nice to try and scramble up a new pile of shit to see just how much shit there is in the world and if I�m really missing anything at all living here.
There are entirely too many things here. Every day, I drive to work and I can physically see 5 new cars on the road. I�m not talking about 2005 models � I�m talking about 5 cars that weren�t there yesterday. It�s gotten so that the road I travel to work on to beat the traffic on the parkway needs a new road to beat the traffic on the road. It will get so congested on these roadways soon enough that we�ll all have to drive to work single file, red lights ahead of you at all times, bumpers kissing like children playing spin the bottle. It will be pointless. It will be a long haul all the way down the line so that I sit in a room, sit there all day long, sit looking out of the window and watching other people at least outside of where I am, even if they are trapped in a different version of the same nightmare. They will be here too. They will all be here.
I don�t hold it against my parents that they never got off of this island. I don�t consider it their failure or their weakness. To be honest, I think it shows the highest regards for one�s situation � each of my parents are easily within simple driving distance to everyone they are closely related to. Within an hour and a half of driving, I can be on the doorstep of my farthest reaching kin, with the obvious exception of my Aunt Sue in Spain.
And there. That one example, that one shining example, illustrates my point. She and she alone escaped this entire place, just picked up and got out of here. And she is fine. And we are all still here, each and every single one of us. We are and always will be still here.
But I won�t and I refuse to be. This is not an attack on those who need me close, who want me close, who think they can�t live without me close. My mother will undoubtedly progress worse and worse as time trickles on. Today, she said to me that I better enjoy it and I asked her what I should enjoy and she told me �your mother cooking a meal for you because in a year, you won�t have that luxury.� And you know what? I already do appreciate it. In fact, I�ve appreciated every single thing I�m leaving. I�m already there. I don�t need to move away to learn to appreciate these things I leave behind � it will only make me miss them. But so what? So I miss things. Eventually, my mother will die. This is a cold hard fact that no one can ignore or deny. I will die too. And you? So will you. And that day, the day my mother dies, that day I will miss out on every home cooked meal, every hug and kiss, every single moment of every single day of every single week of every single year that I have had her there. It won�t exist. I will have no mother to hold, no mother to laugh or cry to and nothing there period. It will be an empty hole that will no doubt swallow my heart whole.
And my father. Forget it. That man goes and I�m done. That�s the end of the story for me. The icon I hold as truth and strength. The model I apply all facets of myself to. The answer key to every single question I could ever ask. When he dies, I will no longer be myself. I will have lost half of myself � there will be no one to hold a light to anymore. I love my Dad more than any human being on the face of the Earth because he�s done nothing more than ensure one thing � that my heart beats. That my sister is alive as well. He�s put himself to the stone, flayed himself with the whips of manual labor, worn down his body hauling himself through life for one purpose � to ensure the safety and well-being of me and my family. He�s the single most passionate man I�ve ever met, striving at nothing but excellence, aiming at nothing but success and getting it. Not cocky, not headstrong, not vain, not even proud. He will be the death of me when he dies because there will be no other person on this planet that can ever stand on the pedestal I see him on top of.
But know that despite these two people, whom I hold closer to myself than all others, whom I view with higher regards than I hold myself to, whose lives have been used to provide for my own, despite these two people that bar none are the only thing I feel in my life is worth a goddamn, I will be leaving them. I will be leaving.
I will.
I haven�t written anything here in quite some time. I have no reason for this except maybe I just didn�t have anything to say. I�ve been very numb to living for some time now. I have had no excitement, no major jostling or thrill and the reason is because I�m so set in my ways. This is why I�m leaving. It�s not in spite of all of these wonderful things � my family, my friends, my life here � but rather as a celebration to them as well as protection for them. Given enough time, these things would eventually have the majesty siphoned out of them. I would become ignorant to it, I would become weary of it all. My wonder at the absolute marvel that my life is right now will have died. And I�d begin to ignore the absolute beauty of this moment. To me, that�s an even worse crime. If I stay here, I will resent here and if I resent here, I will resent everything about here, including all I hold so dear. I�d rather know that there waits for me a bundle of good, a bastion of hope, a lighthouse for my soul and my heart that will shine ever strong, that will guide me forward and help instruct me when I�m lost. You will all be here still, I know it in my heart of hearts. It�s hard to leave here � look at my family. My grandparents on both sides lived here almost their entire lives. My parents have yet to live anywhere but Long Island and me, I�ve been here since I�ve been anywhere. 3 generations deep stuck like fly paper to this island as it begins to fill and overflow into who knows what. Maybe I will return after I leave and despite my wandering will remain here until death, the 4th Belmonte generation fending for themselves on this capsized ship as I slip slowly on to death. But if I don�t even try, I will have robbed myself of the very thing that all of you have helped mold and helped me keep.
I will have robbed myself of life.
BMC
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