"While I'm far away from you, my baby, I know it's hard for you, my baby because it's hard for me, my baby, and the darkest hour is just before dawn..."
-- The Mamas and the Papas
I have, waiting on me, more notes for Micro and three quizzes that need to be taken for Anatomy Lab; however, most everything else that should be completed has been completed, and since I overslept and missed my meeting this morning, I have a little more time to wake up slowly and restfully to start my day. I have yet to meditate today just as I have yet to clean up the morning mess from the kitchen and brush my teeth and get everything around my desk into an ostensible, working arrangement. I do have time, though, to post the next installment in the story. I'm sure that this second folio is one which many are all-too-familiar with already.
If I were to consider this a memoir in its entirety, I would be failing in the historical accuracy of my plot if I considered moving from, say, point A (Magnet) to point G (today) without mentioning several bumps and interventions representative of all the letters in between. However, I know everyone reading probably just wants to know the punchline of this protracted tale, so I'll try not to digress much along the way.
Although the circumstances of this particular yarn focus around Whitney Burke as she one of the other two main characters, I would be remiss in not mentioning a few other people whose support and friendship established the genesis for what would come after graduation from Magnet High. Without Katie Gregg, I never would have learned that there was something comforting in actually following my dream. She and I spent the tawdry end of our senior year discovering Andy Warhol and John Waters. When the summer was closing, she left for San Francisco to pursue a career in Interior Design. Among others, the one who stands out the most is Bijal Patel, a beautiful and brilliant girl that I'd been close to longer than any other. In middle school, Bijal introduced me to the world of Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz and many other writers of glitz and glamour fiction, each of the tales structured around a core character who came from nothing, encountered unimaginable obstacles, and managed to follow his or her dream all the way to the pinnacle of success.
Katie was going to be on the cover of any and every Conde Nast publication highlighting brilliant bedrooms and bathrooms. Whitney was probably going to end up on Saturday Night Live. No matter what avenue Bijal explored, it seemed clear that she would rise to the top. I, on the other hand, never really wanted to go to college. My plan? Graduate high school, move to New York, and write.
However, I was the baby in the family. The dreamer. The one with an ounce of creativity, which led me to believe that the words I printed on paper would take me to a world where I could sustain myself through writing alone. Yes, I was the baby... in a family of overachievers. My sister was a genius, my brother found opportunity and perseverance on roads following his ranks in the army. My father definitely instilled ideas of practicality in all of us, the thought that we could dream, but we should always be realistic no matter what.
As the writer and star of the student-produced soap opera, my family saw that I did, in fact, have some talent, but the majority of my high school teachers stifled my creativity because the things that I found interesting and alluring and wonderful were the people and arts they considered lowbrow trash. I preferred Valley of the Dolls to Heart of Darkness and Alfred Hitchcock to Daphne DuMaurier. In fact, my senior year, I took every possible creative class I could find, in hopes that something had to give. The morning began with Creative Writing, then Video Journalism, then Novels, then Drama, then English... I had hopes and dreams. I even remember writing a short story called "The Secret Game" that my English teacher almost refused to get behind as a possible submission to ArtBreak. She stood behind a fellow student who had written something that was a bit more on tap with the other entries that would hit the student competition. I remember my English teacher's shock when my story won the top prize: the Superintendent's Award.
Once again, I digress... Suffice to say, I just wanted to write. Reality sat in. I was forced to choose a college and a career goal and a life plan. I opted for Louisiana State University in Shreveport to major in Public Relations, which led to Psychology, which took to down to Lafayette to visit a friend named Rachel one weekend in October of 1997. I fell in love with Lafayette, and by the end of the following year, I was in the final stages of transferring to the university down there and on my way to moving to a town that would change my life and take me in directions I never could have anticipated.
Lafayette is a predominantly Catholic town. There's a huge music and art scene with constant openings of new restaurants and festivals and live bands playing every night of the week. It's the perfect town for a young, up and rising artist to develop his voice. Unfortunately, being a town that I consider The Garden of Nocturnal Delights, there's a degree of exposure to other alternative behaviors. I tried it, I liked it, you all know what happened. 1999-2001 was bad. 2001-2005 was worse. A darker time, a different story, only important to mention in working my way to the events of the early part of November, 2009.
July 16, 2005.
308 East Texas Street.
Bossier City, Louisiana.
I had only talked to Whitney on the phone. We had seen each other briefly in 2001, but I was drunk and out of sorts. Other than that, life had taken us on different paths, different routes, and it would take the next several years following July of 2005 for me to find the path, discover the routes, accept matters, and move on.
It is suggested to recovering addicts that they avoid relationships and sexual escapades for one year. How can I be expected to be half of a healthy relationship when I am not a healthy individual (Mariann M.)? Good advice. Sound advice. For those who take the route it works. A recovering person is allowed to get clean, stay clean, lose the desire to use, and find a new and better way to live his or her life.
One year. Done. Two years. Done. Three years. A new prospect: Northwestern State University College of Nursing. The ten year reunion. I met with friends and familiar faces before, but I didn't attend the reunion. Time had passed and things had changed. Whitney and I rekindled our times and our talks. No matter what time and experience had passed between us, some relationships never die. In reminiscing and remembering, she would always remind me of the moment I told her of my big secret, when we were sixteen and just pack from the month in France. And good ole Whitney. She could never let me forget that she knew I the revelation before I did, because she'd had prior experience with this guy named Jeremy who she'd grown up with. Her gay boyfriend before I was her gay boyfriend.
As I encountered the beginning of my fourth year in recovery, life had shown up, I'd encountered obstacles and changed and developed, and I'd learn to see the light. July 16, 2009 came and went along with math classes and English classes and psychology classes and chemistry and first aid and CPR and I saw myself achieving and maintaining. I saw that the things I thought I'd always wanted and hoped to reach really weren't as important and imperative as I'd once believed, and I found that I had an alternative route. I saw that there was this other thing, another objective that I was actually good at, something that I really liked.
I realized that there was only one thing that I didn't want. I hoped that I would never look back at my life and see that the biggest and best thing that I ever did was go to rehab. I wanted to have a list of brilliant achievements and life rewards for doing the next right thing and trying not to hurt anyone along the way. So far, so good.
But sometimes, in the wee, dark hours of the night, when the quizzes are completed and the notes are recopied and the chapters are read and the note cards are made and I realize that I actually have a little time on my hands, life feels lonely.
To Be Continued...
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