I’ve been having gut-wrenching nightmares lately. About my
days in college. The memories have slipped me and I think it’s my present
memory telling my nightmares that these are filed away and never to be
recovered again. It’s painful, because those were some of the happiest days of
my life. I think for a lot of sports people who go into professional sports
afterwards, they share a similar thing. In college there is so much unknown and
potential. Once they move into “the real world” all that comes to realization.
Good or bad. The paying customer, say at an NFL game, looks and feels different
to them at a paid NCAA game (which goes to the school anyway). There is that
unconditional love, even through gritted teeth of disappointment. That’s why
you see a lot of them on the sidelines of their alma mater. It’s when they felt
the most adored. In the professional world, it’s a job. If you don’t do it
right, people let you know. There’s a massive coldness to it. Shit, we boo’ed
Andy Dalton (QB for the Cincinnati Bengals) at the 2015 All-Star Game
(baseball). You think he’d get that at TCU (his alma mater). They’d be proud of
him.
The nightmares I get are relatively the same, so…okay,
reoccurring. It’s that I go visit my ol' college and everything has changed. I go back to my
old apartment, the source of the fondest of memories and it’s occupied by
someone else. And I wonder who it is. But don’t have the courage to find out.
They would never relate to my story anyway. Then I go to my girlfriend’s house
down the street. And the place is gone. It’s a big grass field now. Or the
street doesn’t look familiar. Or whatever. Yeah, I get the underlining message,
but…it was also the source of the best times through the worst situation. My
college girlfriend and I were both sad in Bowling Green, Ohio and needed each
other for comfort. This led to deep love. The first love I really experienced
where someone entered my life so fully. And was happy to know someone like me
existed. I think that’s why when love does go bad, people feel like they are
missing a limb. I felt that deeply. I’ve never experienced since, this lost
feeling of…contentment. It meant that everything in my world was locked up in
that tiny apartment. I guess that’s why people are okay with just having a
simple job and raise a family. That contentment is perfectly fine. As these
were my pleasant memories. And someone else is living there now.
When I boozed my hardest, I think I lived in that limbo of
recalling that memory. Replaying the roles ad nauseum. Remembering every detail
of the place. I’m sure going back now, the place will be smaller. And mean less
than in a dream. But I think I’d be a little overwhelmed by the impact of that
history I may have tried to destroy when moving out to Los Angeles. If you
aren’t ready to walk, it’s pretty difficult to start riding a bike.
I think being out in L.A. a lot of people who do have a
support system in their hometowns will discover that people out here can’t
necessarily articulate why they need to tell their stories. Most of them are
based in a deep loss and the attempt to recover it. In a sense, I think a lot
of people love pornography for that same reason. To see the sweetest most
innocent person succumb to “the world” shows we all can tumble. I do believe
the ones that worry me the most, are the ones who do suppress these memories
the longest. The ones that can’t come to terms with that deep loss. That may
also mean trying to capture what is already gone. These people will crack wise
constantly to cover un-surmountable pain.
I don’t think people who work in movies known exactly what
it is they’re trying to resolve. That’s the frustrating part. Eventually we all
go towards a theme. To me, it’s always about history loss. In my grad thesis
project, a young orphaned boy locates his estranged grandfather. The time loss
between them is excruciating to consider. That there could’ve been a family
dynamic, had it not been for resentment and dysfunction. Instead, the powers
that be (government) decides the grandfather isn’t the best candidate to raise
an 8 year old. If you don’t make proactive decisions in your life, others will
decide for you. And it’s generally not the one you wanted.
I think there is a deep sadness now that I have been out
here so long, and in the sense of most people pre-millenium venture to Los
Angeles…had a route to make an impact so that people would know their name back
home. It seems the ones who enjoy it here the most, have more to run from.
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