RECYCLED

the things we lose for all the wrong reasons..

i was watching the video i took of sam's wife walking down the aisle with her father in arm.. when i noticed something i have only seen in video for years now.. 

before the bride came the flower girls.. and one of the little girls couldnt stop laughing.. which made me and a lot of other people laugh too.. and there in the backround.. through the pubic hair beard he's got now.. i saw bishop smiling..
laughing even.. and it made me feel like i was missing something..

then theres the picture that i had josie take of me, sam, fredo, and isaac.. and after i showed the picture to sam.. i told him.. the only thing missing is big ass bishop standing in the back.. and we laughed that broken laughter that comes from a place thinly veiled in guilt.
the things we lose for all the wrong reasons.

finally..
it was late in the night.. and they stretched this huge screen across one side of the little area where we were at.. and sam said he was gonna play a video slideshow and that he was dedicating it to someone who couldnt be there.. 

and sams brother was sitting next to me and he said he thought it was for his grandpa..

so i didnt think too much of it... 
i leaned back and readied myself to watch the show.. when the music started.. that one song.. the song we all have in common.. me. bishop. sam. and joser.


the story goes.. when we came home from bootcamp.. we had 10 days of vacation.. and the 1st day.. i think.. we went to bishops house for a while.. and it so happened that his parents weren't home so we broke out the plastic bottle vodka.. well joser did.. and maybe bishop.. im not sure.. it was so long ago.. and we all got on the computer and downloaded music.. well joser downloaded "time after time".. by cyndi lauper..  and he sat there and drank and listenened to that song over and over again that night.. and to this day i dont know why... but we always remember it.


so the video starts and the song follows.. and its the cover of time after time by matchbox 20....

immediately my eyes fill with tears and i tell josie i have to go.. i stand up and walk away slowly.. trying to hold it in.. 
i stare out into the night and i cant hold it.. 

i turn around and here comes sam.. also teary eyed... he reaches for me and hugs me the way a father should hold his son.. 
i cry.. outloud.. as the song progresses... 

you said go slow.. i fall behind.. and the second hand unwinds.. if you're lost you can look and you will find me.. time after time  ..if you fall i will catch you... ill be waiting.. time after time.. i end up missing most of the video and i dont remember if sam said anything to me during those minutes.. but i dont remember anyone else being around.. 

it was like everyone else had disappeared..
and i wish bishop had stayed to see it too..


the things we lose for all the wrong reasons..

  
i think i thanked sam for the song .. but its all hazy and still drenched in the tears i left on his rented tuxedo coat that night..


After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to gray
Watching through windows--you're wondering
If I'm OK
Secrets stolen from deep inside
The drum beats out of time--

should be sleeping...

this is just going to be a jumble of shit.


i was playing some remix version of 'hurt' by nine inch nails in the department tonight and i was enjoying it because i'm a sad bastard.

i walk out of the room into the little hallway and notice a transporter is sitting there taking a break.
i say to him, sorry for playing sad music, dude.

he promptly says that its ok, it doesn't bother him.
i'm in an honest mood and i tell him that i watch people die all day so i feel sad at night sometimes.

he asks me if i was here earlier for the code blue and i reply that that's exactly what i was talking about.

he says that he was in there while they were doing CPR on him when they managed to get a pulse back, a weak one, but a pulse nonetheless.

he says that the man opened his eyes and tried to say something...

i imagine it was to his wife, whom i saw crying in the room.

the man opened his eyes for a brief last moment and then slipped away to whatever was calling him home. he never woke up again.

at this moment me and the transporter share a moment of deep understanding of human suffering and sorrow while trying to express that it's part of our jobs to witness this on a daily basis.

i take this time to walk out to do a portable and i can hear in the background as i walk out these words i hold so dear...

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

i'm afraid of death for many reasons, but a major one is losing yourself.

not ever being me again. 

my thoughts.

 my love.

my mind.

you.

i don't know what i would do without you.

 

sand castle plans

I asked my father if he wanted to go get donuts sometime
he said all I had to do was call him.


wanna do something sometime?

i had an interesting conversation the other night

     I said that everyone liked you.
you said that everyone except me.


I said nothing more after that.


I don't like you because of who you are. and who you'll never be.

you'll never be anything more than what you are and have always been.

I don't like you because you snorted lines off of my car, outside of your house with your friends.

because you get drunk and invite me over only to find you sitting on some other guys lap and going into back rooms with dudes so I have to go fish you out and make sure nothing happens to you, and making everyone in the house want you gone.

because you over do it and your own friends don't want to take care of you so I have to drive you home and leave you in front of your house and hope you don't die over night.

because I had to drive you to get drugs, so you could go to a party at your boyfriends house.

because you have no dreams.

and you're dumb as fuck.

you have a family, but you'd rather not have one.

because you crashed your car while driving drunk and probably on drugs as well.

because you don't really like me at all, you just want the attention from someone who isn't a fuck up like the guys you keep around you.

because you lie.

because you change into whoever you've been hanging out with lately, including their drugs of choice.

because I've watched you do more drugs than I've ever needed to.

because you're you.

that's why.

men

i believe it is important to have strong men in your life. this is what happened to the men in my life. 

My father became a drunken ass and made my mother's life miserable while I was thousands of miles away in japan, unable to come home. So I read e-mails, and listened to crying voices over the phone and carried that around with me while I pretended to be happy with my friends in the times that we had to be young and free. my mother eventually divorced him. My sister was the one to serve him the papers. He was in denial.

My Grandfather, worn down after years of rough living and drinking, gave in one day in February and died. The last time I saw him I was afraid that he didn't recognize me anymore. He was not old enough to be losing his memory. I never got to speak to him as a man, so forever I will be his little parakeet. I was still in Japan when all this happened. I never got to see where he was buried. I carried that around with me and told none of my friends. when I came home I got drunk instead. 

My step father began drinking and then got prostate cancer. He felt weak and started getting paranoid about my mom and where she was going. He would call my sister to make sure she was with my mother, and that they were at the place they said they would be. eventually my mother lost weight and began to look terrible. I'm not sure what exactly happened next because I was away. thousands of miles away. I do remember my mother calling me and trying not to cry so that I wouldn't be worried. there's no way to hide these things. Then they split up and Tim went back home to give up. Tim died far away from here in a manner that he didn't deserve. I never saw him again. 

 My Cousin was killed in the first battles of the new war in Iraq. I felt it before I called home to find out if it was true. Something told me that he wasn't here anymore. It's been eleven years and I never get better. I didn't drink when we hung out together in our youth. now I feel as though i'm trying to make up for it. I was thousands of miles away from where I have always wanted to be since he left. I understand what I have... but I would have given it all up to save him. i'm just not sure if he can handle being away from us, all alone. I hope he's not alone. I went outside to sit on that couch and stared out into the sky until I was allowed to come home for his burial. I don't remember much during that time I spent here. I usually remember everything. 

 I walk around with this in my mind and usually only talk about it when I get drunk. when someone asks about it, I just want to stop. 

I just want to be alone.

I have been alone during the most traumatic experiences of my life. It's no wonder that i'm always trying to leave, or be alone.

the air that i breathe

when I don't say anything here for a long time I miss it.

I need it.

I think about the things that happen in my life and I imagine myself writing them down in here. 
but I've been busy. or at least that's the excuse I make.

I never seem to get in the place where I belong.

I don't really tell people about this thing because it tends to hold a recurring theme.


     I finished the radiology program this month, passed my registry exam, and got my A.S. degree.
but it wasn't without struggle.

     when I walked into that test I felt genuinely unprepared. I burned through it in half the 3.5 hours they give and had flagged over 60 questions for review. I stood up and took  break then. I walked out of the room, drank some water, used the bathroom, looked out the window, stretched...

      then I went back in.

I was determined, but shaken. I'm not normally a confident test taker. in fact, only once did I hand in a test and say to the teacher, "that's an A". this time was no different. I couldn't get over the feeling that I was going to fail this test and blow the only thing I've been working for over the few years.

this whole thing means a lot to me because I feel that it's my last real chance to make something of myself. to make my mother proud. to make you proud. so I lost my mind in that little cubicle thinking that I was going to throw it all down the drain.

     so I asked for your help.
I asked for the clarity and strength I could always get from you when you would talk with me. I just asked you to be there for me.

then I went to work with the resolve of a man fighting to stay alive and changed many answers while cleaning up the mess of flagged questions I had left behind. by the time I was done there was only 15 minutes left of the 3.5 hours I had originally started with.

I pushed the submit button and felt that tingling feeling in my body I have felt so many other times when I feel like something is about to end. I pushed that button and it said I had gotten a 92, and that the passing score was a 75.

I had done it.


     I don't really remember driving home.
I was fucking tired. I had run myself dry trying to get everything done on time while still studying enough to get a passing score on this test I paid so much damn money to take.

but I can't be happy.


at graduation the next day all I could think about was how I wish you were there to cheer for me when they read my name.



I woke up this memorial day morning and decided to play some sad bastard country music. I listened to 'letters from home' and cried in my bed by myself thinking about the same thing again. so I decided that I would bring my cap to you so you could see it was true. so I could share something with you.

I'm fucking 33 years old and the only reason I am anything right now is because of you.


(I stared at that line trying to think of what else to say, but nothing came out... so I guess that's all for now)

time after

i take x-rays of babies in all states of health on a regular basis.
most of the time it doesn't affect me like it does others.

this day I went into the neonate intensive care unit to do an exam on a newborn.

nothing about it was different. the parents had been in and out, making worried/sanguine faces.
I was worried about doing the exam correctly.


during this time I was under tremendous pressure and scrutiny over my performance at work being lacking, so I was feeling as relaxed as a death row inmate waiting for that pardon call right before execution... and just as hopeful too.

I did the exam and was waiting while my accompanying tech did something on the computer behind me when I heard something in the next section over from where we were.

it sounded like singing.
singing and guitar playing.

I was curious so I walked closer until I could clearly hear the soft strings of an acoustic guitar accompanied by a velvet voice, softly singing 'time after time'.

she was leaned over her babies' bubble covered bed, sounding every bit as soulful as eva Cassidy herself.


(I have had an affinity for that specific song ever since my cousin was killed in the war when I was 20. without going much into that part of my life I will say that he loved it. a big tough marine infantryman loved that song, and I have always kept that memory of him to comfort me when I need it the most.)

     I stood there and it seemed as though everyone else had disappeared behind me.
I was admiring a private moment charged with so much underlying emotion that I didn't notice when I felt my eyes misting over the way a window pane does on a foggy winter night, and I was defenseless for a moment.


I stood there listening until I heard the world behind me come rushing back into view and I remembered I was in a hurry again.

I wiped my eyes and tried my best to get the far away look on my face from causing suspicion among the nurses and doctors bustling about the department and walked back to where my tech was sitting.

I went home later that day, like I do, and sat in my room that has slowly filled with memories over time and got my things ready for the next day.

(there was a moment that day when I felt uncertain if I would even be continuing in a program that I had spent the last few years of my life, and my only funds for school, trying to attain... but that one moment gave me a new resolve to continue. I always think of my cousin when I hear that song, and I have come to believe that he helps me when I really need it. it's a strange sign to look for, a Cyndi lauper song, but it comforts me more than anything in this life and will always assure me in the times when I feel defeated.)



I cried in the hospital like an idiot and told no one until right now.

"flashback, warm nights almost left behind, suitcase of memories, time after..."