New Beginnings: Not-So-Instantly Refreshed

There’s a big story on this site called “The 423 Story”. Some people love it, some are bored to tears. The bottom line is, to understand what you are about to read you would have had to of at LEAST read this story. If you want to read the whole thing, from alien attacks through self-destruction, you can read, in this order: A Prelude to 423, 423, The Tipping Point, Breakdowns, Summer Money Attempt #1, Hooker Hand, Movie Memories, Sentimental Bullshit, Movie Making, Selling Shirts, The Last Catering, Ithaca, Back to Boston, and The Lack of Communication.

I woke up to the phone ringing. Despite the alcohol and the pounding headache I instantly remembered what I tried to do before going to bed and thought that only a couple of hours had passed and I was still dying. That’s a scary thought, you know – waking up and thinking you were going to die at any moment. You have all this shit running through your head – you think about going to the hospital, calling 911 and getting the whole thing turned around, admit defeat as if you didn’t admit defeat several hours ago. You don’t notice clues – you don’t notice the sun is shining through your window or the alarm clock is reading a little passed nine-AM.

I roll over and answer the phone – expecting my father to be on it – just sort of made sense, made for a great story. My life was always about the story. I’ve said this in the past but I’ve always had a hard time keeping my fantasies in check – this whole story starts with a dream that turns to a fantastical belief that I was going to somehow play a roll in the end of the world. The mind just goes – I was never the kind of guy that can truly appreciate what other people do – I’m the kind of guy who imagines myself doing what other people do. The problem was, then at least, was that I never applied it – never did anything except write crappy poetry and half assed attempts at novels and convince myself it was literary gold – eventually picture myself as a musician or movie star despite never even trying any of those things. Thinking about stopping terrorists during math class. Dream about being a famous scientist. Always picturing my life as a clichéd Hollywood story and doing nothing to live it out, expecting it to come to me.

It was a courtesy call from my cell phone company; I didn’t pay my phone bill since I bought my phone almost three months ago. Here I am, waiting for this almost cinematic moment – that life saving call where my father says a couple of things that turns me around – bring me back from my death and reminds me that life is worth living. Instead I get a girl named Julie, telling me that my cell phone bill is passed due and that I need to send in payment before they cut off my service.

I tell Julie the check is in the mail and hang-up – check my clock already realizing it was the morning and I made it through the night. It’s an embarrassing thing – you can lay in bed all morning but eventually you’re going to have to look at yourself in the mirror. The whole “looking at yourself in the mirror thing” is, admittedly, an overused cliché but until you do something that truly shames you, not just saying something stupid or playing a malicious prank on somebody but something selfish that has the potential to really fuck up a lot of lives besides you own – you’ll be amazed how fucking hard it is to look yourself in the eye.

Head pounding I go into the shower, I need to get to RA training – I’m already late. I take a hot shower and try not to think about anything. I try not to thing about my Uncle Alex or R or Josh or Mickey or my grades or my family or the troubles my friends are going through. I try not to think about attempted suicide. I make a conscious effort to keep a song in my head, to just wash it all off of me and get on with my day as if last night never happened. I try to push everything I wasn’t dealing with aside, not realizing that practice is what got me here in the first place. I’m crying my eyes out in the shower and all the while pretending that everything that’s happening is still not happening.

And I do well with it. I make it through training. I get cheery when I need to get cheery, serious when I need to get serious and through it all I continuously push all my problems aside. My father calls me from Arizona - tells me how everything is going – and I just nod it all away, get a little sad and write some shitty poem about it.

Move-in day comes and goes. I help people with their bags; deliver carts to their cars so they can unload. I make my rounds around the floor and meet all of my residents. I go to lunch with the other RAs, take a break.

About a week later I see Carolina in the dorm – the girl from the dream with the long-black hair. She cut it short, it doesn’t look the same, but she’s looking cuter than she was on the night of April 23rd and I, being single for the first time in two and a half years, work up the nerve to invite her to sit with me on our bench by the Charles River.

She smiles at me a flirtatious smile and says, “yes”.

We get to talking when we’re at the bench. Last time I talked to her was right after a fight I had with R – she had a fight with her boyfriend as well. Over the summer they broke up – as did R and I. It was a piece of information we both found obviously interesting and we started bringing ourselves a bit closer on the bench – flirting a bit more.

I tell her I’m starting an intramural volleyball team for the third year in a row – she tells me she’d love to play and she’s actually quite good. I invite her on the team and use that as a perfect excuse to get her number. I ask her if I can call her sometime and she has no problem with the prospect. We walk back towards Towers together – once we get to Bay State Road she turns towards her brownstone and I make my way to the dorm.

It took some time but I felt happy – I felt refreshed. I was doing better in school, I loved my RA friends and wasn’t missing my old friends as much, the pain of Uncle Alex’s death slowly faded away and the separation between Boston and Ithaca where Mary and Jackie were greatly took away from the impact of that drama. I was protected, again, and it felt damn good.

I didn’t learn anything yet but I was nicely set-up for the lesson life was about to deliver to me.

Labels: mitc

follow JayRodriguez at http://twitter.com