Posts tagged with "memories"

The Short Life of Leonard the Cat

The hard­est part was putting away his food bowls, and that ter­ri­ble sense of final­i­ty that he’d nev­er be eat­ing from them again.

Spending so much time at home meant Leonard was in my com­pa­ny for a large part of the day. I’m get­ting used to his absence, but I still miss the lit­tle guy.

I had a bunch of ran­dom footage and I nev­er knew what to do with it, includ­ing a few moments from the first time I let him out of quar­an­tine into the rest of the house. When he died I kept watch­ing the footage over and over again until it sort of pieced itself togeth­er into this small vignette of a kit­ty who lived with me for less than three months. I hope they were hap­py ones.

returns

The only thing I bought in Britain was this tea can­dle shade of the London sky­line, found in a shop filled with baubles and knick knacks where Mike and Emma took me. They had a feel­ing it was my kind of thing. Funny to think that they knew me so well already in those three days. I love watch­ing the shad­ows dance across the shade in warm colours.

I went through an entire spec­trum of emo­tions there. Through all the won­der and excite­ment were still moments of weak­ness, gid­di­ness, sad­ness, and inse­cu­ri­ty, because there are things you can’t escape by fly­ing to the oth­er side of the world.

I’ve since set­tled back into my old life. The trip did­n’t change me, not in any epiphan­ic way at least. It was more of an affir­ma­tion of myself and the way I’ve been see­ing things.

There were so many times that I was far out of my com­fort zone, thrust into inde­pen­dence, push­ing my lim­its, and that forced me to be objec­tive to keep my wits about me. In those objec­tive moments were objec­tive views of myself, where I began to under­stand that I was respon­si­ble for every­thing that was hap­pen­ing. For all the mem­o­ries and expe­ri­ences and footage and friend­ships.

And sud­den­ly, I real­ized, I like me.

Seagull

Watched an old crush get mar­ried today.

There was­n’t a hint of pre­ten­tious­ness in her face. She was nev­er pos­ing, nev­er reserved. Atop a sim­ple wed­ding dress — which she once told me her mom was sav­ing for her to be mar­ried in one day — she wore the taught smile that always scrunched up her cheeks.

Ten years lat­er, and she still has the same hair: short, sandy, with curls part­ed in the mid­dle. She was one of those peo­ple who did all her grow­ing in high-school. By the time I met her, she was already the per­son she was going to be for the rest of her life.

And that was okay, cause she was already great.

hair of the dog

I wish Trolley was here so we could play Starcraft 2 like we did when we lived on Island Park. I’d set up my lap­top in his room — he’d have a beer and I’d have a joint — and we’d spend hours against some com­put­ers in Warcraft 3. Or he’d surf the web and lis­ten to music while I wrote in this blog, shar­ing the apart­ment with his kit­ty and mine.

Those were the sum­mers of No Motiv and Coheed and Cambria. The win­ters of Bel Canto and The Dears. I remem­ber being hap­py then.

I wish Aaron and Trolley were here so we could get real­ly, real­ly drunk, even though I don’t drink any­more. Only when I wake up in the mid­dle of the night, and all the thoughts I’ve been push­ing into the back of my head come claw­ing out, leav­ing me with a rest­less mind. I pour a glass of Bailey’s on the rocks and prac­tice scales until the alco­hol makes me fall asleep again.

One time, we went to the Honest Lawyer to cel­e­brate Aaron’s birth­day. In our drunk­en haze, we thought it’d be a good idea to order some piz­za when we got back to my apart­ment (there was a pizze­ria right out­side the side door). Aaron hurled in the gar­den rocks as we were wait­ing for the order. We brought him in, and gave him a pil­low and tow­el cause he want­ed to sleep in the bath­room. He told me lat­er, “I only get that drunk when I’m real­ly depressed”. Sounds good to me.

I wish my friends were here so we could drink like the old days, when we were between school and work, and women.

Everlong

I rarely think of the one who loved me most, even though she still thinks of me. This isn’t on pur­pose; it’s a sim­ple case of me mean­ing more to her than vice ver­sa.

I’ve avoid­ed such an unre­quit­ed obses­sion with my last love. I stopped all con­tact, cut myself off from any­thing that’d pre­vent me from heal­ing or mov­ing on, and I’m proud of myself for hav­ing the strength to break such self-destruc­tive habits.

But I can’t hide from my own mem­o­ries. When touched and inspired so sig­nif­i­cant­ly, one can’t help but remain for­ev­er changed.

Between the choice of giv­ing things a chance and los­ing me for­ev­er, she chose the lat­ter. So I won­der if she ever thinks of me now, the one who will always have loved her most, or whether I’ve just become anoth­er one of the wound­ed boys who stag­gered and fell so help­less­ly against her graces.