Letters To My Little Brother: Misadventures In Growing Older (9 page)

Then I stopped writing as much. I began taking on work and meeting friends and recovering from all the drama that had been thundering between my ears just waiting to be written. I want to get back to that peak, Squirrel. People laugh and joke about how I don’t do anything cause I live at home without a full-time job. I’m not sure what hurts more: knowing they’re right or knowing that I’ve done something great (like reaching a massive audience) but am unable to climb back up to that level of success. It’s sort of like knowing that you were once stronger or you could once jump higher or you once knew more about a particular subject, and then all of a sudden you look in the mirror and ask yourself, “How did this happen? Where did my strength/knowledge/life go?”

It must be hard for Mom and Dad to parent me. They must be asking themselves the same question. How did their son go from being a rising star to a wannabe writer? How can they tolerate a child who gave up everything to do seemingly nothing? And once he actually did reach some tiny smidgen of success, he backed away. What could they possibly say to me to express their fears or discontent without severely damaging my self-esteem and our relationship?

Jeez…Remind me never to have kids.

Love,

-Big Boy

CHAPTER Ten:

Time Capsule Sentimentalism

Dear Squirrel,

Have you ever been asked to put something in a time capsule? Maybe you threw in something cheesy like your (now worthless) Livestrong band. Maybe you put in something meaningful like your one and only copy of Pokémon Blue. Have you ever had the chance to unearth that very same capsule? To reveal those lost memories to the light of day once again?

What would you rediscover? Would you notice patterns that were hidden at the time? Would you realize your once-fashionable orange sweatpants were actually hideous lumps of cotton? Would you uncover any unchanging traits in your personality? Would you notice that you’ve always been obsessive or compassionate or shortsighted? Would you find that you always fall in love with the wrong person at the wrong time? Would you see your future simply by reviewing your past?

Thanks to my handy-dandy diary and my packrat obsession for all things 8.5”x11”, I’ve been able to keep a (spotty) record of my life for the past few years. I’m not telling you all this just to blabber on about drivel, but rather to remind you of the places we come from, the place we are now, and the limitless places we still have to go.

February 22, 2013

I didn’t do much today. Between taking a few meals and a trip to the gym, the most excitement I had was shopping with Kimmie for neon running shoes. As uneventful as the day was, I still had a lot on my mind, like why no girls have responded to my online dating messages (well, I know why…), why I still feel so angry and heartbroken, and where my future would take me.

The best part of the day, though, was watching the Hurricanes game with my friends. And while our team eventually lost, I met a man who offered to take me to lunch and, hopefully, kick-start my freelance writing career. That means Step 1 of Organizing My Future is officially underway. I guess you really do have to put yourself in a place for serendipity to happen.

One Year Before

A few of my friends from college visited me, followed by my sister, and then by Celine. It was one of the most hectic months I’ve ever had, socially at least. My two friends were visiting because their powerful short film about homophobia had made it into an important film festival in San Francisco. Then, when Kimmie visited, we toured the city and visited Alcatraz. I swear I saw my freshman math teacher because of his signature cargo shorts and blond ponytail. I also had the cold tingling sensation of failure on the back of my neck, so I assume it had to do with him and the many, many times I didn’t understand calculus. Celine arrived right on the heels of my sister’s departure. We watched the Duke/Carolina game together; we went to a church in Berkeley, which was made to appear like a hollowed-out cave (and because Berkeley is all about being PC, every verse of every song was sung in a different language, forcing me to mumble the Gloria in Vietnamese); we also survived our first real earthquake, and I saved the day by deflecting a paperback book from dropping on her head.

While that month sounds like it was full of fun and games, gumdrops and lollipops, cuddling and canoodling, my diary reflects a different attitude, one full of immense doubt. The following quotes are from my diary, followed by my retrospective commentary:

I am struggling with all those big questions in life: Am I talented?

Still to be determined, but I think so.

Am I in the right place?

At the time, yes. California was definitely where I needed to be. It was difficult and lonely and far from home, but it forced me to grow up and become a mature, functioning citizen of the world. Right now though? Yes, I should be in Raleigh. I think I listened to “Wagon Wheel” on repeat until it finally came true.

What is my purpose?

Sorry, bro. Still trying to figure that one out.

How do people make friends in the real world?

Another tough question I still can’t answer. Maybe they join an underground Scrabble league that I just don’t know about yet. [Note: I really wish that were the case.]

Why I am so torn up about my Celine even though we tried it and know it won’t work?

Hahahahahaha! You thought that was bad? Enjoy the next year, dude. As for my honest answer, it’s because you were still in love with her and you clung to your idealistic, romantic belief that work, effort, and dedication can overcome any incompatibilities. And, frankly, you still haven’t changed in that regard.

Will I ever succeed in love?

Define ‘love’. Do you mean finding a soulmate? Or do you mean going to Amsterdam, hiring a prostitute, and receiving a certain kind of loving? Cause one is a lot easier to do than the other, so I’m guessing you could ‘succeed’ if you got really desperate slash bought a plane ticket to the Netherlands. Otherwise, the jury’s still out on soulmates.

Do I do a good job? Will I return for another year?

I did do a good job. My performance review wasn’t stellar, but I feel like I was liked and appreciated by my coworkers when I eventually left. As for returning for another year, the answer is no. I left 7 months later. Now I write this blog and live off the non-existent ad revenue.

Why do I still listen to Fall Out Boy?

Unanticipated, yet pertinent, question. The reason is that “Sugar, We’re Going Down” is the best song of my junior year of high school. Don’t hate. And yes, I did actually ask myself that a year ago.

Will I ever resort to online dating?

lololololol yes. Yes. And yes. It’s as bad as you imagined and then some.

One Year, 9 Months Before

At the end of my senior year of college, I received a ‘time capsule’ letter I’d written myself during my freshman year. Here’s what 18-year-old me had to say:

You are anxious about the future.

Nothing new there…

You haven’t picked a major (but you are thinking about International Comparative Studies and German w/ an Arabic minor)…

I ended up doing Linguistics with a Film certificate. I took more German and Arabic, but that prediction was way off. Way, way off.

…You are obsessed with a cute girl who you just can’t seem to forget. Honestly, you just need to man up and find out what happens.

It took me another 4 months after writing that to take my own advice. But on the bright side, this means I wasn’t moaning about Celine back then!

I sure can’t wait to find out!

Then I’ll tell you: a short, blissful high; many long-distance phone calls; a long tailspin; and a slow, painful rise from the wreckage.

This is a big deal, and while the paragraph may be short, I can’t stress enough how pathetic your little crush is.

Even 18-year-old Matt was self-deprecating. Damn. I guess some things never change.

Two Years Before

I was busy working on my senior film thesis, directing actors for the first time and doing my damnedest to bring my (poorly-written) script to life. Here’s my abridged diary entry from exactly two years ago:

Today is a recovery day. I needed it. I just sat in my chair [at my internship], captured tapes, and never got up again. I also converted my H.264 files to ProRes422 and then started organizing them on Final Cut. The editing process is daunting, but I kind of look forward to it. I want the see the emotion really flow.

Alright. That sounds pretty good to me. Exhausted but fulfilled, intellectually engaged but practical, frightened but optimistic…

Two days later, I wrote this:

Celine is coming this weekend. It’s amazing how I get my hopes up about something that I know won’t happen.

How wrong I was…Enjoy the next two years, bro.

I have spent a lot of time flirting with [my friend Bobby’s former interest], which scares me… How do you tell your best friend that you want to hook up with the girl that broke his heart?

Well, first of all you tell him. Then you argue about it and have a passive-aggressive friendship for a few weeks. After that, you realize that you should never jeopardize a solid friendship for the unstable, unlikely possibility of creating a new one. Then you beg, beg, beg for forgiveness over and over.

3 Years, 8 Months Before

I wrote this in my diary after spending an evening atop the ramparts of the seaside village of Essaouira, Morocco. I sat and talked with a girl, Hazel, about the gorgeous golden-and-orange horizon hanging over the dark ocean ahead of us. Just FYI, these quotes are how I imagined the conversation to have happened. I’m 80% sure that no one talks in such a stilted manner as this:

“It’s things like this that make me wonder why I am sad all the time,” she said.

“I know it. It’s like it takes something as epic as this — something that can’t possibly fit into your eyes, your camera, your painting — to put it all into perspective,” I responded.

“But I have this strange feeling of loss…”

“And fulfillment? Like you’re here now, experiencing this but you’ll never have it again?”

“It’s that and more,” she said. “I want to never go home. I want to sit here and watch this forever, but I know I can’t. After this, I’m not sure I can go home to all those people who have never traveled. They have no idea what they’re missing.”

“That’s why we have each other, right? Cause we are all experiencing this together? This isn’t just your reality or mine. It’s
ours
.”

A small fishing boat floated by. It’s black silhouette drifted on, it’s path marked by a tiny white light on top of the cabin.

“Those guys have no idea what they’re missing,” I stated in pity. “They see this every day but they could care less. They just want to get home right now, back to their families, their warm meals…”

“ Do you write?” she asked, touching on my secret desire to someday be a prosy fool living vicariously through his characters and his words…

I saw the waves slap the wall below me and I immediately felt like the closing line of The Great Gatsby: I was the explorer, the boat beating ceaselessly against the current into the orgiastic future. For the first time in a long time, I saw the path ahead of me. I could turn around, climb down the wall, pass the cannons, and return to the medina where I came from. Sure, I don’t know what the medina holds but I knew it felt safe, like a place I could deal with. Or I could follow the sloped wall forward into the sea. I might fall 20 feet into the sharp rocks below and, hell, I might never make it past the natural rock barriers that have been beaten smooth by centuries of waves. Even if I made it all the way out to sea, I could easily lose sight of land or get lost in the eternity of the ocean.

But the sea still felt right. It is where I have to go. With a companion to share this reality with, the sea is where I must go. The only question now is how.”

I wrote that 4 years ago and yet every poorly-phrased sentence still holds true. See, Squirrel, our lives shift and change constantly. They’re like sailboats on the sea, tacking back and forth into the wind, but we can still trace the lines we took to get to the places we are now. The future is hazy. It’s muddled. Who knows what will force your direction to shift once more?

The point is that you should never lose sight of your past. It made you who you are, for better and for worse. The reason I’m so introspective these days is because it helps me find the stable, permanent parts of myself. Look at all the threads in the previous passages that still weave into the fabric of my life today: I’ve always toed the line between self-assurance and self-doubt; I have constant anxiety about my uncontrollable future; I have always struggled with romance, especially in terms of my toxic friend-/relationship with Celine; and I have always ignored the obvious: I want to write. I want to explore, express, and enjoy life. I never cared about the proverbial sex, drugs, or rock & roll. I cared about experiences and a
Mrs.
Dalloway
-ian sense of interconnectedness, the hope that reality is not subjective to our own eyes but rather a set of objective moments in which we participate together.

Your past holds all the answers to your future. It’s your treasure map and X marks the spot. The question is not about the eventual end, Squirrel. “The only question now is how.”

Love you always,

-Big Boy