do you believe!?

yes!

I said…. DO YOU BELIEVE?!?!?!?!

AMEN AND HALLELUJAH, WE BELIEVE!!!

WHY do you believe?!?!?!

…

I saw a future me at the store today. I was hunchbacked and grey-haired. Well, grey-clown-haired and shiny bald. My spectacles (that’s what I’ll call them when I’m old) askew nearly on the tip of my nose, I peered into the old-style open refrigerated shelving at the various cheese choices, trying to decide which one was the the cheapest per ounce. My all-purpose work jacket that I’ve had for the past ten years is a little war-torn, but a faithful companion on these shopping trips that I take all by myself.

Present-time-me smiled a little bit at the stoic and romantic solitude of a life dedicated to improving everyone else’s life. At the trips to the store that I love like trips to the airport. Like a million people that I can watch so I don’t have to focus on myself. So I can take a break from this constant looking in and watch everyone else deal with the mundane problems of figuring out which cheese is the cheapest per ounce or which line will get them through the embarrassment of taking off their shoes in public the quickest.

Actually, I’ve seen future me before at the bowling alley. It might have been the bowling alley in Port Townsend when the royal we went to the only bed and breakfast I’ve ever stayed at and they had fancy organic toothpaste and I’ve bought the same brand ever since. When we were wandering around the town and happened upon something to do even though you hate bowling. Or, it might have been in Kenmore. At any rate, future-me was younger then, or maybe older. His 50’s pompadour was slicked back just so and he was bowling by himself. A plain white t-shirt rolled up just high enough to show his sun-faded tattoo and just tight enough to hold his pack of cigarettes. But the point is, he was playing this social game all alone and he was old. He was just too bad ass to be anyone’s friend.

Some days I want to believe in a different future. I want to believe in traveling groups and picture albums and playing music together and eating your delicious food everyday and somebody else’s grandkids and making one person’s life perfect instead of trying to do small things for every other person. This is quite egotistical, of course. The underlying thought behind this is the thought that I deserve something like that. I’m pretty awesome, but I don’t get to choose what I deserve. I just get to choose how I deal with what I’m given. And if what I’m given is what I’ve currently got, then I’ll be good at bowling or shopping or taking walks on the beach or typing out rambling, depressing blogs when I sit alone in my empty beach palace, listening to old punk records, drinking hot chocolate and reflecting on what I’ve done, what I should have done and what I couldn’t have done in a million lifetimes.

I think I might go buy an oversized pink dress shirt and go to my sister’s roller derby team’s 80’s dance party costumed as Tom Cruise in Risky Business. It’d be nice to bring a date instead of being accosted by roller girls, but I don’t get to choose what I deserve, no matter what or who I believe in still. Besides, it’s not my turn.

Awesome things I did today:
skateboarding
talked to someone at the skatepark
played music for 30 minutes
read about more volunteer activities to do

** Old Wordpress comments **

Ian says:
April 29, 2009 at 10:44 pm
You have gotten spectacular at describing the human experience, don. I only wish I could voice my life like you do…

don says:
April 29, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Thanks buddy.
You should start a blog, too, English major…

kumiko says:
April 30, 2009 at 10:56 am
is that mr. duncan two comments above me?!

don says:
April 30, 2009 at 5:14 pm
No, it is a different Ian. That name was pretty popular in our generation, though.

kumiko says:
May 4, 2009 at 6:30 pm
ahhhh, i thought it was because of the name and when you said english major. poopy