My mother used to tell me I was a princess.
Though not in so many words. When I was a child, she told me that our not-quite distant ancestors had once been enthroned, that the blood that ran through our veins was royal, that the split level we lived in could at any moment be replaced by a charming European villa in a place cold and foreign and beautiful and far, far away from here.
These are the dreams she placed in my head; these were my convictions. Which are fine convictions to have while you are a child, but not much longer. Soon nursery rhymes and recess are overtaken by rock and roll and acne, anger and angst, the pursuit of the score, the reputation, the ultimate high. We sorted through albums and songs and nasty guitar riffs looking for meaning. Trying to feel again. Trying to find something to make us believe that we were still alive.
Because that was what growing old did to you: hollowed you out inside. Carved you away like one of those old pumpkins you botched and that your mother lit by the front door as October trailed off into sweet oblivion. But such were the times. We all lived, or tried our best anyway. But not all of us made it. Not every one.
Some died. Some got stupid and did drugs. Some of them we knew and some of them we didn’t. And sometimes some of them we didn’t know got stupid and some one we did know, not being stupid at all, got in the way of the other one’s stupidity. That was how Scott died. It could have been any one of us. It could have been me.
I remember that some days. I remember that when I’m driving down the road. I remember that just cause you’re sober enough to press your foot down on the accelerator and hold those rpms steady doesn’t mean you are sober enough to drive. I drive drunk some times. And I think of Scott. And those times I’m sorry.
But it’s not so bad I guess. When I’m riding shotgun and things get scary, I close my eyes and release. I wonder briefly to myself. Is it my time? Because if it is, then what the fuck can I do about it? I am invincible. Nothing can touch me. I am free.
Because the flame of youth is no candle. It is a brushfire and it is burning through my soul. I want to blaze my path so bright across the earth that the moon catches my light in its reflection. I want to be a memory, not just a ghost, a faceless, shiftless ghost. I don’t want to haunt this earth. I want to be greater than the bigger picture; I don’t want to place myself in it, but rather, I want it to find its place beside me. I want to remember who I am, and in remembering, be remembered, forever, and ever.
Amen.
