Pelgris

Have you ever remembered something that changed how you thought about your past?

I know that many of my readers have. Generally those memories rip you apart. They are wounds hidden by scars that the mind has hidden.

My dream this morning featured a man from my past I hadn’t thought about in a long time. We fell out of touch. Basically because I felt he was using my generosity too much. Something that was probably true but I never told him about it. I just let the friendship drift off.

But this man was someone who I was kind to for no ulterior motive. No profit was to be had from helping him out. And we used to hang out and talk and go to raves monthly. This was when I was much younger.

I’ve always thought that the man I was prior to Morgan was a monster. And, viewing things from a certain, even common, perspective that’s true. But there were also this man and a few others who I was generous with my time and availability.

My friend had a bad home life. He was homeless most of the time. I can remember, at the end of some nights where we had gone out, that me taking him home consisted of taking him to a particular dumpster behind a office building. Because that was where he was living.

I would buy him food. He would shower at my house when we would hang out there. For a couple of years there he was one of the few people in my life not tied to family or the job.

One day he told me that his uncle had died and left him a place in Hawai’i. I hope that was true and that he is living there off his uncle’s money, like he said. After he told me that, I never heard from him again.

I can picture everything about him. Where he lived, all the various places. His presence. His laugh. The sound of his voice. But I can’t remember his name.
That makes me sad. Like he’s lost somehow.

But he was in a dream tonight. And despite the content of that dream, which is complicated and I won’t get into. Despite that I woke remembering all the little things that I did to try and help him. And this was pre Morgan. So, the generous, kind man. The man I’ve thought for years was the product of my harrowing. Existed before her.

Maybe that’s who I am. I won’t say that I am not the other, the man of darkness and blood. But that it was, apparently always tempered by light.

I’ll never be a sunlight creature. My heart and thoughts churn too heavy and turgid. But neither am I a creature of absolute darkness, nor(apparently) was I ever. So here I am. A creature of the twilight.
The grey. Between one thing and another.

But knowing that if I fall, it won’t be into complete darkness. Instead, there will be a path out. Forged of the things that I am.

Knowing your experiences, your memories. Accepting them. Sometimes they burn away who you are and break your mind and world. Sometimes they remind you that the false image built on fear and despair is just that, false.