I spend many of my weekends home. In the city that I cam out in. In the places that made me the raging Queermo that I am. I feel like that should feel regressive. I am a junior in college I should be doing internship and interviewing. I should be picking out companies to work for. But to tell you the truth I might be one fourth of the way done with my degree. I am taking the scenic route. Its been four years since my peak at ATYF, which is where most of the guys in my life came from. Its been three since my time at ISSA where all queer friends come from. About six months in to my time at each place I met all of my friends here, and we are all still here. That should sound bad, that none of us have moved on from this place. Any normal person would think it was bad. My friends age now range from 18 to 30, so four years ago I was 16 and it was from 14-26. We are all still here. Some of us only spend the summer here because of school but this is still home. No of us are dead. There are so many normal ways to die in Chicago and we lived. God knows some of us would have been dead without our guardian angles. Some of us should've been dead but death can't touch this. So when I say we are all still here that means we didn't succumb to gun violence. We didn't let depression beat us. We stayed healthy regardless of our status. We didn't leave when it tough, and we toughed out the cold. So it might just feel like progress because we all survived. But I mean for some of them their lives are here. My friend that is thirty is an assistant director now. That is a jump from where he was four years ago. My friend and their partner just moved in together. My other friend just bought a house. Nobody has graduated college yet ( to the best of my knowledge who already didn't have a degree). Nobody has gotten married or started a family. I have had friends go back to school. I have had friends that have been published, promoted, and written books. That's not stagnant or regressive. But I guess my issue isn't with them its with the friends like me who's lives look like they are going backwards. If you didn't know I left my big ten school where I was on a full scholarship. I hated it there and it was killing me. I am still in school but I am not in any engineer classes right now. But just like the rest of my friends, who are just now finding stable footing after some difficult shit, I looks regressive. I know like it looks like went backwards that I wasn't able to hold my own. But I went through it. They went through there own little trail and tribulations but that's over now and they made it. Now we need to do what's best for us regardless of what it looks like. So yeah being back every weekend feels like familiar, but its not the same. Because we aren't the same. Its so strange to me that we can spend basically 10 months apart and come back over the summer like its nothing. Like nothing has changed. But things do change, mostly us, but we are able to make it work. We don't see each other for ten months most of the time because we go away for school or have grown people stuff to do durning the year but for two months we catch up and we are together and everything is okay. I don't know what I am going to do when one of us moves away. Its like 28 of us including myself. I normally don't see my friend durning this time because I am normally gone but its nice to be able to chill with them on the weekends just like I use to when I was 16. I think it is self medicating for my depression because I am so happy when I am with them. We are all at different points in our life somethings like getting tacos at 2 am or talking over froyo, kick backs in the car even just never get old. And talking with each other definitely helps us. We all have different prospectives and thought processes so discussions are heated and insightful. I learn so much from them. And in many ways I can feel the difference. We all are a little smarter, wiser, and stronger. We all pretend to be a little more mature. The changes that we have undergone because of life's test sit well with in our bones now. We can all kind of breath happy before winter comes. I think because summer is a party time for us now that the dust of our fast lives has kinda settled we are free to live slower and have that time to reflect. So kick backs in the car moving forward just at a pace that allows us to enjoy the ride.
Stay fierce
J Skittles
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