| dewy decimal |
2004-06-12 - 11:15 p.m.
I'm not the wayward boy that I was when I moved back to Hawaii in 2000.
Yesterday I was trying to recall what kind of person I was four years ago and I can't, for the life of me, recall what it felt like to be 21.
Here in Hawaii, I've gained several things:
I developed a relationship with my family that is amazing. So much so that it pains me unbearably to think of the day when I'll leave Hawaii on a jet plane, watching my house, and my city be reduced to a twinkle in the Pacific Ocean. To feel distance as a ache in your chest.
It's here where I've made 11 best friends, whom I know I can rely on well into old age, when my posture will have slumped and the people that I love will be dropping off like flies. Vanessa, Everett, Astra, David, Sarah, Twan, Jon, Lee, Jeffrey, Keoni and Shari. These are the names that I search for in my cell phone. Filling the vacancies in my days and in my spirit with little, meaningless conversations that mean everything to me. You would never believe the amount of love that they give me. It surrounds me at all times.
Here, where I fell in love, truly, for the first time on the unreal coast of Waikiki. To find myself caring for someone with such an unrelenting urgency. The smell of him lingering on my pillow long after he'd gone. And how much it hurt when he left me. Hoping he doesn't look back on me with any resentment, but remembers how I looked on that first night, when I asked him if he had a boyfriend and he said yes, but knowing in my gut that somehow one day we would share something extraordinary. Gaining new meanings for all my old songs. Singing along.
I'm grateful that I got to be with my Grandmas, who practically raised me, before they passed and told them how grateful I was and how much I loved them, looking into their tired, half-opened eyes only minutes before they embarked on whatever there is or isn't after that last breath escapes.
Grateful that I gained the discipline to finish college. To know that I have a strong interest in formal education. To believe that I am capable of getting my PhD. To think of myself, for the first time, as a capable person.
Finally coming out and shedding all that guilt and unbearable secrecy that was rotting in me for all those years. The stink disolving into open air. The immense relief that had me talking with a lisp for months. To finally be comfortable in my own gay skin and do what I like with my own gay dick, then to find that I don't identify with the "gay scene" and realizing that it's such a non-issue, and that I am so much more complex and contradictory to be able to wholly identify with any "scene."
Everyone I've wanted to know or ever had an interested in, I now know. Every musical, fashion-related, literary, art interest I've had within these four years, I've investigated and found that nothing could escape my understanding. I can take from the things that provoke me and incorporate them into my character in a very natural fashion. My thirst for these things are stronger than ever. The realization of how music is essential to my emotional well-being and my quality of life. To fall in love with music over and over and over again.
I know Hawaii. I know its irreconcilable downfalls. I've memorized its exceptional beauty and character.
Being well aware that sometimes I am a shit-talking, irresponsible bitch, who doesn't give a fuck, but also knowing that in my epicenter there is a warmth and a desire for life. And sometimes, it comes out glowing through me, amazed. Being unreasonably insecure but having this little, intuitive hunch that it's something I can grow out of with age.
I'm going nowhere professionally and physically, but when I shuffle through my catalog of old photos and journal entries, I'm able to see that I've actually been moving at whistling speeds. The way it feels so slow when you're on your plane, but knowing that you're traveling at a mind-fucking velocity.
But this is why I need you New York; I can tell you almost everything about Hawaii and it's here where I learned so much about myself, where at one point, doors were opening for me left and right; revealing, revealing, learning, frustrations, learning... And to be able to tell you right now, after all that glory and bullshit that I haven't a fucking clue of who I am.
I find myself with restless thoughts that are just shoveling themselves into my head. Into my torso. My sense of equilibrium. Going deeper, and deeper, sending me into a clinical insanity.
I've been on the outside looking in before and also the inside looking out, my vision crossing in symmetrical transitions. Finding that even my impulses are thoroughly thought out.
I'm ripe.
Fruit must drop.