Long Time, Long Distance

Today, I get to spend a few hours along at Star Coffee in Round Rock, TX to just... be. To think. To reflect. To sit on my laptop with the headphones on. To do whatever. To just be. And when the coffee ran out, I switched to beer.  It's a good sanctuary.

Given the nature of this past week, it's no surprise that things took a slight sentimental turn. With my previous posts, The War of Perception and Maelstrom, Part VII: Revelation, I had clearly and deliberately set the tone for the week, both for myself and for friends on Facebook. Now, I have much to think about. I have gotten a lot of feedback in private conversations, a lot of perspectives, a lot of support, and a lot of mixed emotions.

I reread all of my own blog posts from Feb-July 2006, looking for something I missed. I don't even know what I was looking for, exactly, but somehow I think I found it anyway.

The feeling, the tone, of ten years ago was vividly fresh in my soul even before spelunking through old blog posts. Bittersweet connections to people who have been separated by distance and time. A very long time, yet somehow an incredibly short time, and in most cases, very long distances.

I am, have been, and always will be, profoundly regretful that the faculty screwing me over cost me a lot of time in April and May that could have--should have, damn you--been spent with an easy yoke and light burden which would have allowed me more time for my friends, time to feel good about ourselves and about each other. Even back then, I declared that to be one of my motivations for starting my thesis so much earlier than everyone else. And, had Lillios and Shrude not been utter failures to me, I would have at least had that consolation prize. So, I'm sorry. I will always be sorry that I couldn't spend more time with you guys. It was Lillios' and Shrude's doing. The saga is well documented. But all along, I just wanted to feel good about grad school in the end. Since my time there was so miserable, I worked twice as hard to make the end of it redeeming, but it was for naught; the faculty saw to that.

Not to be dining on ashes, but I want to illustrate my feelings with a couple of citations from the past.

In my post Journey to the Line, posted February 17, 2006, I wrote:

It gets worse.  

To add insult to injury (and to add a few more injuries, for that matter), my peers are already there. People who have started their theses a mere few weeks ago have actually surpassed me.  

How is that supposed to make me feel?  

Hearing my peers congratulate each other only rubs salt in the wound. Hearing words of praise issued to them by non-composers only makes me feel like I've wasted my time. Consider when I started this thesis. Consider how hard I have been working that whole time. Consider how convinced I was that I would finish the composition, editing, parts, and defense long before the March deadline. Now consider that I am... somehow... behind the others who, until very recently, were agonizing over not even having an idea for their pieces yet?

I am as non-competitive as you can get, but seriously--how is that supposed to make me feel?

As recently as 2013, in my post Dying Embers, I said:

No, I haven't forgotten. Every time I ponder how we're drifting, I can't help but wonder... if the faculty at BGSU hadn't fucked me over and over and over again, I might have had more time to invest in my friends. That was my incentive, after all. The series of old blog posts called "Maelstrom" is not over.

But Facebook would have suffocated those relationships eventually anyway.

It's not that I'm "researching" my own regrets. In fact, I remembered writing these blog posts, so I knew just where to look up these excerpts. While details fade, and even chronology is hard to pin down a lot of the time, my own thoughts on life are what I remember most clearly. I can't tell you what year Mozart died without looking it up, but damn it I remember my thoughts in any context.

I remember declaring my desire to move to Kansas City after BGSU, for mental decompression, friendships, freedom, and martial arts training with Eric Banks--all of which I did accomplish, by the way.

I remember saying that, while it wasn't possible, my ideal at the time for that period of decompression was to have a shack on a gravel road near Belton, just south of KC but close enough for convenience. I even knew the road. I had driven down it. I fantasized about the liberation of having no neighbors, just a porch to watch the sunset and listen to music with a drink in hand and a dog at my side.

Well, just yesterday I watched the sunset in exactly that fashion. Call it a convoluted fulfillment of prophecy or a belated consolation prize, but it fit very well with my week of reflection, all things considered. In a way, I got what I wanted. But it's not a one-person shack, and the road isn't gravel, but the driveway is. Essentially, my point is that I have a peaceful space now.

After my thesis was complete, toward the end of my time in Ohio, my sister loaned me the first season of Lost, which had just come out on DVD. I was hooked. Fast forward, and yeah I have a lot of problems with the show, and I loathe J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof more with every passing year. But here today, sitting in the coffee shop with my headphones on, I've been listening to Michael Giacchino's scores to all six seasons, or at least the more poignant and sentimental highlights of them.

Some of you know what I'm talking about. For those who don't know and feel that music, it's just meant as another example of bittersweet connections to a time from a long time ago, to a place a long way from here.

Indeed, this spring I have been stricken by a deep fondness of BG friends and a yearning to have squeezed in more time together before the end... and a haunting regret that I couldn't have been more than I was.

A bittersweet connection, all right. Though it's vastly more bitter than sweet. But nothing can ever match the camaraderie, the brothers-in-arms sort of rapport we had as grad students. Ever.

So, BG peeps, this drink's for you. And then I might have to move on. Because there's a present-day, real world to deal with. There's work to do. And spoils of war to enjoy.

Make no mistake: I am still setting aside some time every week for Bowling Green Redemption, with my sights set on this May, but I have many other New Year's resolutions to accomplish, after all.

How fitting that, right now, as I type this, I am listening to the music cue from the final scene from Lost, titled Moving On.