re:

"I never went back... The longer I was away, the less I wanted to return and see how small the place must have grown, how sparse the stars, how perfectly ordinary the tract houses, how trim that mysterious house, the jungle of a yard. And even if I managed to come at just the right time of year, and the neighbor's pear tree still stood, and I managed to find a late-season pear in an early snow - would the voices of my friends come wandering down the dark road, calling my name as I bent down to claim it?" - Elizabeth Gonzales (from Half Beat from The Greensboro Review)

I certainly reconnected but I cannot say for sure it made much difference. I think what I know now is that I do not care to waste time re-ing anything. Reconnecting, remembering, rehashing, redoing. Except for reconciling. If it is broken then there is true necessity for healing, redemption, reconstitution. But otherwise forward motion is all that counts. Recognizing the state of these relationships with my family and oldest friends (and newest friends that feel old) and taking them into new realms and to new heights of honesty and integrity and intensity and fruitfulness.

I have felt what I feared I would feel returning to Cincinnati. Every time I have pulled into the neighborhood of my adolescence I have felt the same thing I felt in high school. There is a pull and a voice telling me to leave. "You should not be here. There is nothing ultimately good for you here and you cannot grow. Leave not as an escape but as actual movement. To stay is to stagnate and you must go on." I believe that voice because the longer I am here the more I feel as though my passions are evaporating and my heart is regressing.

Not that it is bad for me to be here for short stints nor that my parents have not attempted to build a home that would foster an environment of great and mighty achievement for us four boys. For this moment, however, when I am most confused, lonely and in need of solidarity encompassing me the unsettled commotion this place offers is unmooring in ways I don't need right now. But steps had to be taken over these last few days and difficult things needed to be said and heard. This winter has been my time to live uncomfortably because for the time being there is no consistent comfort for me.

I am very unsure of what is reliable right now and what will not crumble under my weight when I try to use it to support myself. It seems most everything is slipping away extraordinarily quickly, especially my trust in constants and anything or anyone who claims to be thus. I am more skeptical than ever and therefore even more alone because I don't trust myself to any greater extent than anything or anyone else. Perhaps I am about to embark on a stage of life involving imminent commitment issues. This has never been the case for me since everyone I have tried to commit to has abandoned me when I asked something of them that seemed reasonable to me at the time and as I consider each circumstance now, still rings very justified and menial in certain respects. I was never the one who had to be convinced commitment and persistence were possible and positive. There have only been three people I have sustained what in my young life could be considered long term relationships and none of them stuck around when I had wishes of my own that would cost them something that I always assumed was slight compared to what I thought they should be willing to offer in a relationship such as ours. Anyway, I am having a hard time seeing myself as lovely or lovable and this trip has not done much to quell these feelings. I hoped it would. On some level. I just feel more motivated to "go out and get mine" but this is mostly spurred on by anger and self inflicted indignity. I want to conquer my corner of the world but only to make noise and be noticed and that is never satisfying. If I am truly honest with myself I actually just want it all to come to me. I was talking with my youngest brother, Jarrod, and I realized I have never been pursued by anyone. No one has ever taken such an interest in me without my initiation that they began doing things to secure my affection. I have done that for multiple people abundant amounts of times to no avail. I am alone and I am partnerless. I am learning to wait without expectation or bated breath. I am learning to breathe and exhale prayers. I will be heard and I will be found.