I don't give myself much free time to go out. Seeing the people I grew up with is rarely a priority for me. I travel like an addict, as if I need to be on a plane to be able to breathe. I look forward to coming home so I can recover, write, hug my children. Because of this I've recently found myself in a strange place where I feel homeless. Not in the sense of lacking shelter. It just feels different.
I'm not a tourist, but I'm not a local anymore.
So then the question becomes "Well then, what the fuck am I?" because I'm still here. Oddly enough this doesn't make me ask "Who the fuck am I?", at least not yet, because I know exactly who I am, and who I am not. If there's any good to come from my feeling lost it's that I was able to find myself because of that. Holy shit that was deep (giggling).
But seriously what the fuck am I? I'm a Father, angler, writer, TV Show host. All of that, even parenthood, is totally superficial. It doesn't define what. The. Fuck. I am. So then what am I? Am I still a Yankee? To me, I will ALWAYS be a New Yorker. I don't care where I live or how long I've been gone. It doesn't matter what state issues my Driver's License. I'm from the N - Y. And you city pricks, don't tell me I'm not. We upstaters are the REAL NY's and trust me, the feeling is mutual.
But what the fuck am I? I've been asking myself that over and over for the last 3 weeks. What am I? And do you know what I've found the answer to be?
Alone.
And that is the scariest thing in the fucking world for me, and that's why it's exactly what I need right now.
For the past 18 months I've lived in constant fear, paranoia, anxiety, fear, exhaustion, paranoia, heartache. I withdrew from everyone, and the whole fucking time it looked like my life was perfect to the world. The reality is that I was going through the hardest period of personal growth in my life. As though the universe was making me pay the ultimate price for having actually achieved my dream.
Most of you don't really know me. Even if you think you do you probably don't. And in fact, if we haven't dated in the last 8 months, have the same father, or you don't call me "Dad" you don't know me AT ALL. But if you are one of those few, then you know that I've been a mess, and it's because I love you that I let you see me falling apart.
But I don't know what's next. I don't know what to do, or where to go, to feel "home". I'm even sitting and writing this in one of the last places I have left that truly feels like home to me. But the people who were here then, are all long gone. Dead or dead to me. Dead to each other. That I have this place to come to proves I'm not a tourist (to me, anyhow).
Being here also reminds me of every time I got knocked down, came here, and left stronger than the day I arrived. Maybe it's the sammiches at the Smithville Store. They always did look superhuman even if they weren't. There's that saying "Must be somethin' in the water..." and there could certainly be truth in that as well. But what I really believe is that coming here reconnects me to nature in a way fishing does not.
This place is the land that time forgot because it's disconnected. This is not a disadvantage, or a hardship. Smithville Flats is a lifestyle choice. It's a profound demonstration of a group of people that decide every day that the REAL world got too fucking weird, and way too fucking busy. These people still borrow eggs from a neighbor, have an antenna on the roof, and give zero fucks about getting faster wifi.
And these are my kind of mother fuckers.
And to them, I'm "home".
No comments:
Post a Comment