Yellow Flowers

I really want to make a rap video called living at my mama’s house! I’m not going to make it, but if you do, it’ll be a huge success, and I’d like a cut of whatever you get.

February 1, 2009 I left my mother’s house to live on my own. I had no plan at all, I just decided that I couldn’t live at home any longer. It’s hard to go from traveling the world to having to be quiet after 10pm. Pride. Impatience.

2009 turned out to be the toughest year of my life. You’d think starting it off on Capitol Hill watching Obama being sworn in, it would’ve been incredible…it would’ve been a CHANGE. And I suppose it was. I changed. Since being baptized in 2000, I have tried, though often times unsuccessfully, to focus my life ultimately on God. In 2009, I thought myself out of that, and decided to try and make my life about me and my wants alone. That failed.

“You taking these?” Quan asked. He held a couple little yellow flowers in his hand. They were dry and dead. “Yeah man, set them on that box.”

Boxes full of knick-knacks and trifles, gathered through the years. A pen my father bought for me; a tiny ceramic pendant Walid gave me in Egypt; a CD Moran and I listened to in Israel; withered yellow flowers that we picked together. Who knows the thousands of dollars we spend on the things in our lives—TVs, radios, cars, boats, furniture—but someone could steal my bed, my futon, my t.v., and I’d be far less upset than if I lost those flowers. I wonder, what are the yellow flowers in your life, in your room, in your heart? And how long will you carry them, packing them and unpacking them, finding a place for them in your new rooms, in your new houses, in your new places? At some point, will they no longer fit? At some point, will you accept that with or without them, you’ll never forget those people, that love, those moments? It’s hard to trust that to faith.

This blog has no direction. Will you stay with me anyways?

I don’t take moving home as defeat, I take it as reality. To be honest, I take it as a blessing. The nice thing about having life beat the shit out of you is that all previous notions of pride and self-importance generally fall by the wayside, and it becomes easier to see yourself, your passions, your goals, and the best path by which to realize those all fully. Clarity.

A friend of mine, upon finding out I was moving home, said, “Sergio, boys who live at home past the age of 22 are losers.” That stung for a bit, but I’m not a kid anymore, and part of that is seeing what your situation is, and making the most logical decision possible. I could’ve not left teaching 4 years ago; I could’ve not spent my savings traveling; I could’ve done a lot of things differently, but I didn’t, and those were choices I made, and from those choices came wonderful things that I’d never take back. So here I am, and there’s nowhere to go but forward. And there you are, wherever that is, and there is nowhere to go but forward. What does that mean for you? Moving home? Forgiving? Being kinder? Going back to school? Accepting that life may not be the romantic dream you had once envisioned, but it might still be really really amazing if you get your head out of the clouds, out of the past, and work with what you’ve got? ‘Cause kid, I don’t give a damn who you are, you’ve got a lot.

I don’t hate Valentine’s Day (I’m trying not to hate anything these days), but I don’t love it either. If we were together, I’d do sweet things for you, and we’d go for a walk, and we’d kiss. But we’d do those things on other days regardless. I don’t care about Valentine’s Day one way or the other—I just miss you, but so it is on other days too.

I’m sitting on the back porch at my mother’s house. There’s a slight breeze blowing through the drooping Pepper tree to my left, rustling the leaves on the Eucalyptus tree to my right. The sun is bright, but it’s neither hot nor cold, as it trickles through the tresses of the newly painted arbor above me. It’s the nicest day of 2010thus far.

There is nowhere to go but forward.