The Bloomsbury Group and Greener Grass
When it comes down to it, I think the idea that always stuck out the most to me about English as a major was the idea of becoming a writer within a group of writers. You see it all over history. Dorothy and William Wordsworth traipsing around Europe with Samuel Coleridge. The Bloomsbury Group living in a small inter-sexed commune. Lord Byron and Mary and Percy Shelley, The Fireside Poets, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Just this idea that there's a generational group of writers looking over each others' shoulders, comparing notes, and having experiences together. I think, in the end, that's what I always wanted, both in a career and a group of friends.
I make friends everywhere I go. Not always a lot, but always. The end result is that I have friends that instead of traveling the country with, I simply have all over the country that I constantly have to leave behind and choose between. I travel a lot, but I travel alone.
Some of you might recognize parts of this.
I had friends in Louisiana when I left the first time. I spent the next year or so making promises that I'd come back, and that maybe we could all go to college together. In the meantime, I moved to Arizona, and spent the whole time thinking about how I just wanted to be in Louisiana. Arizona was too dry, and while it's very cool to see real life palm trees and cacti for the first time, I missed my marshes and viney overgrown trees. However, as I spent time in Arizona, I naturally made friends.
The truth is that the first time Justin dragged me to his table full of misfits, I felt terribly out of place. I've never had the gumption to call myself a goth. I feel estranged from society to be sure, and while I always felt like black looked good on Justin and Joe, and especially Johannah, Danielle, and Angie, I couldn't ever bring myself to wear an outfit like that myself (a thing that Justin constantly teased me about). That's oversimplifying things though, but the truth is that though I always valued my connection with them as friends, I always felt like I was outside of their group. I wasn't the same as them, I was less. A sheltered little Christian boy who could only scarcely scratch at the depth of their lives. I had nothing but respect for that, but it didn't help but isolate me further than I wanted to be from them. I never understood what would make me belong, and so I just kept my head down, my mouth closed, and didn't tell them how much I respected and wanted to be apart of them. How much I loved them. I never really knew what to call myself in high school, mostly because the term didn't exist yet. Otaku had started to cover it, though it's changed a bit since then, and that wasn't all I limited myself to. I was something else. Something unidentifiable, but also something bland,without the flavor they had. I never said so, but those 30 minutes before class, sitting against the wall of the hallway with everyone was my center, my Tintern Abbey, even years later after everyone has gone and the building as well (so I'm told. I believe it's still there, and everyone waiting).
Others showed up later. Others that I still wasn't sure I fit in with. Naomi and Ruth and Martin came along, and I was happy with them. I was happy with everyone, though I still wasn't sure I felt like I belonged in the group, even in the wake of it's shift from Goth to the growing Otaku line. That didn't change my feelings, of course. Even Ruth, with her headstrong personality (I'll leave it there).
I was devastated when I left. I spent so long wishing to go back to Louisiana, and I struggled against it, reeled against it so hard that I can still feel the echos of emotion. I remember my last night. If there was a way to end everything, i suppose that would be it, but that's something else entirely. The point is that going back to Louisiana, I could only think of one thing...returning to Arizona. I still hated the climate, and the large city atmosphere was always a bit too impersonal for me, though infinitely more expressive. None of that was it. The rest of the state could burn under that sun, as long as that building remained.
I'd say it's irony, but it's not. It's poetry.
I never got to move back. Not the way I wanted, but it changed something about everyone I met since then. They were all shadows, shadows I never fully fit in with. I graduated high school only having made a single friend in Trey Ray. My reunion is this year, and I don't know that I'll attend, it wouldn't mean anything to me if I did. Actually, I do remember senior prom. I didn't go. Several of the people in my class wanted to know why, there was even a few offers of pity dances with other girls if I only made the trip, but I'd given up at that point. My junior prom was gone, but I wouldn't accept some pale imitation, regardless of what everyone else thought it should mean. So, I graduated, and I left with my friend, and I left him behind too, to go to Oklahoma.
I don't know what to say about that. I never felt that my friends with Pryor never really understood me, and I had no one to share myself with, never completely. I value many of the people I met here as well, but the entire time, I longed for what I left behind. I still made plans to go back to Arizona, plans which I never went through with because I was always too scared. I got close to the people in Oklahoma, really close. I almost managed to convince myself that they were as important as the ones in Arizona. Then I realized that I was trying to convince myself, and I gave up. I was still always on the outside of their group, because I couldn't identify.
That's not to include the people in Tahlequah. The truth is, that the Amtgard group was joined for a completely different reason. The reason being that I wanted someone to agree to let me to hit them with a foam sword while shouting "thous" and "thees." However, I've stayed for a completely different reason. The truth is, the truth about Donnie and Adam and Butch, is that while they'll never fully understand me either, I don't need them to. That means there's still this one degree of separation that still keeps me away from them, but I'm willing to more or less overlook it because they're, so far, the closest I'll get to my idealized imagination.
I'm willing to overlook it, but the rest of the world is not. That truth has been with me ever since I went back to Louisiana. Part of that move was based on the thought that they would all move away too. For the most part, they haven't. I'm the only one out here, and I'm watching them all, holding up the pretenses that they know everything about me. Everything any single group can anyway. Truthfully speaking, I could just go to college there...maybe even look for a job. However, college there would probably be inferior than what I'm truly capable of getting, and where you graduate from is at least as important as the degree you have. I'm finding that out now, but I have a chance to correct that...if only I leave them behind too. Not only that, but getting a job, especially getting a job teaching, means that I can't be so picky where it is, and that my chances of getting on in Tahlequah, Oklahoma are slim to none, especially if I get my next degree there.
There's a pattern here, of course. Even I can see it.
I found out that there is a job opening to something more akin to what I would like. I've always been a traveler, and my school has been telling me that it's easily possible for me to get paid teaching english in other countries. I've given it some thought actually. I could spend a year in France, Japan, and even China, and get paid for the chance. I could see as much of the world as I've always wanted. I just have to leave everyone behind. Again. Most of them aren't really there anymore anyway, and regardless of what I do, I won't have what I really want. That building.
I could do other things too...go to college somewhere else, do something else...but no where seems to have the correct compatibility. Maybe it's not the locations, maybe it's only me. I'm not sure, but I'm getting too abstract for my own good, so I'll stop here. Keep in mind, for those of you who might have recognized parts of this history, that this isn't the sum of my thoughts or relationships with you. If you'd ever like a more focused history, just ask.
These are my confessions.
Nicholas
I make friends everywhere I go. Not always a lot, but always. The end result is that I have friends that instead of traveling the country with, I simply have all over the country that I constantly have to leave behind and choose between. I travel a lot, but I travel alone.
Some of you might recognize parts of this.
I had friends in Louisiana when I left the first time. I spent the next year or so making promises that I'd come back, and that maybe we could all go to college together. In the meantime, I moved to Arizona, and spent the whole time thinking about how I just wanted to be in Louisiana. Arizona was too dry, and while it's very cool to see real life palm trees and cacti for the first time, I missed my marshes and viney overgrown trees. However, as I spent time in Arizona, I naturally made friends.
The truth is that the first time Justin dragged me to his table full of misfits, I felt terribly out of place. I've never had the gumption to call myself a goth. I feel estranged from society to be sure, and while I always felt like black looked good on Justin and Joe, and especially Johannah, Danielle, and Angie, I couldn't ever bring myself to wear an outfit like that myself (a thing that Justin constantly teased me about). That's oversimplifying things though, but the truth is that though I always valued my connection with them as friends, I always felt like I was outside of their group. I wasn't the same as them, I was less. A sheltered little Christian boy who could only scarcely scratch at the depth of their lives. I had nothing but respect for that, but it didn't help but isolate me further than I wanted to be from them. I never understood what would make me belong, and so I just kept my head down, my mouth closed, and didn't tell them how much I respected and wanted to be apart of them. How much I loved them. I never really knew what to call myself in high school, mostly because the term didn't exist yet. Otaku had started to cover it, though it's changed a bit since then, and that wasn't all I limited myself to. I was something else. Something unidentifiable, but also something bland,without the flavor they had. I never said so, but those 30 minutes before class, sitting against the wall of the hallway with everyone was my center, my Tintern Abbey, even years later after everyone has gone and the building as well (so I'm told. I believe it's still there, and everyone waiting).
Others showed up later. Others that I still wasn't sure I fit in with. Naomi and Ruth and Martin came along, and I was happy with them. I was happy with everyone, though I still wasn't sure I felt like I belonged in the group, even in the wake of it's shift from Goth to the growing Otaku line. That didn't change my feelings, of course. Even Ruth, with her headstrong personality (I'll leave it there).
I was devastated when I left. I spent so long wishing to go back to Louisiana, and I struggled against it, reeled against it so hard that I can still feel the echos of emotion. I remember my last night. If there was a way to end everything, i suppose that would be it, but that's something else entirely. The point is that going back to Louisiana, I could only think of one thing...returning to Arizona. I still hated the climate, and the large city atmosphere was always a bit too impersonal for me, though infinitely more expressive. None of that was it. The rest of the state could burn under that sun, as long as that building remained.
I'd say it's irony, but it's not. It's poetry.
I never got to move back. Not the way I wanted, but it changed something about everyone I met since then. They were all shadows, shadows I never fully fit in with. I graduated high school only having made a single friend in Trey Ray. My reunion is this year, and I don't know that I'll attend, it wouldn't mean anything to me if I did. Actually, I do remember senior prom. I didn't go. Several of the people in my class wanted to know why, there was even a few offers of pity dances with other girls if I only made the trip, but I'd given up at that point. My junior prom was gone, but I wouldn't accept some pale imitation, regardless of what everyone else thought it should mean. So, I graduated, and I left with my friend, and I left him behind too, to go to Oklahoma.
I don't know what to say about that. I never felt that my friends with Pryor never really understood me, and I had no one to share myself with, never completely. I value many of the people I met here as well, but the entire time, I longed for what I left behind. I still made plans to go back to Arizona, plans which I never went through with because I was always too scared. I got close to the people in Oklahoma, really close. I almost managed to convince myself that they were as important as the ones in Arizona. Then I realized that I was trying to convince myself, and I gave up. I was still always on the outside of their group, because I couldn't identify.
That's not to include the people in Tahlequah. The truth is, that the Amtgard group was joined for a completely different reason. The reason being that I wanted someone to agree to let me to hit them with a foam sword while shouting "thous" and "thees." However, I've stayed for a completely different reason. The truth is, the truth about Donnie and Adam and Butch, is that while they'll never fully understand me either, I don't need them to. That means there's still this one degree of separation that still keeps me away from them, but I'm willing to more or less overlook it because they're, so far, the closest I'll get to my idealized imagination.
I'm willing to overlook it, but the rest of the world is not. That truth has been with me ever since I went back to Louisiana. Part of that move was based on the thought that they would all move away too. For the most part, they haven't. I'm the only one out here, and I'm watching them all, holding up the pretenses that they know everything about me. Everything any single group can anyway. Truthfully speaking, I could just go to college there...maybe even look for a job. However, college there would probably be inferior than what I'm truly capable of getting, and where you graduate from is at least as important as the degree you have. I'm finding that out now, but I have a chance to correct that...if only I leave them behind too. Not only that, but getting a job, especially getting a job teaching, means that I can't be so picky where it is, and that my chances of getting on in Tahlequah, Oklahoma are slim to none, especially if I get my next degree there.
There's a pattern here, of course. Even I can see it.
I found out that there is a job opening to something more akin to what I would like. I've always been a traveler, and my school has been telling me that it's easily possible for me to get paid teaching english in other countries. I've given it some thought actually. I could spend a year in France, Japan, and even China, and get paid for the chance. I could see as much of the world as I've always wanted. I just have to leave everyone behind. Again. Most of them aren't really there anymore anyway, and regardless of what I do, I won't have what I really want. That building.
I could do other things too...go to college somewhere else, do something else...but no where seems to have the correct compatibility. Maybe it's not the locations, maybe it's only me. I'm not sure, but I'm getting too abstract for my own good, so I'll stop here. Keep in mind, for those of you who might have recognized parts of this history, that this isn't the sum of my thoughts or relationships with you. If you'd ever like a more focused history, just ask.
These are my confessions.
Nicholas