To My New Old Friends

I'm sorry.



I'm sorry I said what I meant and I'm sorry that it actually hurt you as bad as I wanted it to. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I regret saying what I said, it's just that I'm sorry. Why should I regret telling you the truth? True story: I hate you. When my head fogs, when my heart screams, when my eyes close: I hate you. I do. I'm sorry for making you cry. I'm sorry that watching you cry brings a smile to my face, but I'm lonely. When you cry I feel less alone, and I can, for a minute or two, breathe a little deeper. I'm sorry I need attention so badly that getting up every morning becomes almost as painful as being in the same room as you. I wish things were different. They're not. They never will be.



Things came between us. We let things come between us. We let a girl come between us. That was unfortunate. We let a boy come between us. That was unavoidable. We let a bottle of listerine, a newspaper clipping, and a number of overbearing parents come between us. I told you to leave them out of my life. I warned you. I Warned You. I WARNED YOU. But we never did LISTEN to eachother's silence did we? No, we always had to fill the space with secrets and lies. Secrets and lies came between us, and I refuse to say that that's all my fault.



Yet, underneath the secrets and on the surface of the lies I still call you first when I lie on my near death bed. I still have your mother listed as a contact in my phone. Remember when I surprised you with that rare showing of generosity? I still remember when we danced in the rain. I still remember when we sang along to "Larger Than Life" and "The Perfect Fan." I remember salt and vinegar chips in my backseat and I remember that the oversized sweatshirt that I wear when I'm sick is one that I stole from you. I remember windows rolled down, volume up, sunglasses on, and conscience off. I remember us. I remember what we had. We both want it back but we both know how it'll end. No matter how we try it will always end.



So, I write this for you. When apologies have been made and the floor of rock bottom is covered in Foodbarn crums and Panera scraps there is only one thing left to say. Thank you. Thank you for crying over me. Thank you for holding my hand when I couldn't see far enough in front of me to take the next step. Thanks for never talking. Thanks for talking. Thanks for high notes. I'll always miss them. Thanks for final bows and for telling me that I look good in green. You know that I can't help but live in green. Thanks for turning white when you heard about my accident. Thanks for telling me you hate me when you found out I was kidding about being terminally ill. Thanks for doing things for all the wrong reasons. Thanks for never abandoning me. Thanks for loving me even after everything changed. Thanks for finally letting me go in a town where excruciating goodbyes always seem to turn into hopeless hellos. Thank you for always remembering the brother you once had.

True story: I love you and I'll miss you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Social Class: Child Psychology?

The Wallses were kept in their social class quite simply because they were discouraged by a social ladder with a few missing rungs. After having researched social class, its causes and effects it is evident that much of it is psychological. This is reflective in the book. It follows that social class is like quicksand. The lower you get in social class usually indicates that you aren't very educated and that you make less money. To struggle out of that makes one sink mentally because in many cases the chasms between the socioeconomic levels of class such as lower class to middle class can be too big a gap to bridge. This seemed to be the case with the Wallses. They were so settled in their rut of lower class that it drove them to alcoholism and depression instead of determination and drive.

In this memoir the parents of the given household acted as children. I was having a discussion with friends of mine the other day about some of our own childlike behaviors. I elaborated about how I was one of those people who will be all ready to clean their room, garbage bag in hand, and then when my parents come in as I'm bent over to pick up my first reeses peanut butter cup wrapper and yell "clean your room," I'll drop the bag and go on the computer not to clean my room for a few more weeks. If I'm tucking myself in and my parents come in screaming "GO TO BED!" I'll untuck myself and wait an hour or two. I do it out of spite for what is expected of me.

That is one reason why social class is so hard to break out of. People are trying to start a momentum for themselves and other people pushing that momentum is only vexing. It's a jarring interruption to your own personal drive. It's unnecessary and frowned upon with indignance.

Furthermore, people will rise to the expectations set on them. I firmly believe that the reason I consider myself intelligent today is because I was expected to succeed in the advance reading group in first grade. I was put in advanced math all the way up through 6th grade, when I was removed from advanced math my math grade started to slip to Cs and Ds from As and Bs. Efied math but a B in AP US Government. I've risen to what is expected of me. It is not because I am the best actor that the performances I give are of a high calibre. It is because I am expected to be the best actor that I put the work in so that my performances are of the best quality. People rise to the expectations given to them.

The Wallses suffered from being thought less of throughout the book. They didn't think enough of themselves. They mained in their rut because that's what they thought themselves capable of. Social class is not an insermountable circumstance but rather a glass ceiling that can be easily shattered with some positive thinking.

Too Scared To Be Cowardly

Don't pretend, as you read this, that it isn't fear of embarassment that drives you to succeed. It isn't getting the A+ on the paper that motivates us. Rather, what motivates us is the peeping Tom sitting next to you (or in this case, sitting in front of his computer) who may or may not scough at a D. What motivates us is knowing that what's on the line is more than just your life; it's your reputation, it's your dignity, it's your happiness, it's your sanity.


Thomas Fuller once said that "some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away." I agree, and so, I'm sure, would Tim O'Brien. Mr. O'Brien is a man that sat on the edge of the rubicon river (or was it the rainy river?) and weighed his options. He stood between Canada and Vietnam. It was death or death. One death is literal, one figurative. He says of the figurative:

"and what was so sad, I realized, was that Canada had become a pitiful fantasy. Silly and hopeless. It was no longer a possibility. Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave. That old image of myself as a hero, as a man of conscience and courage, all that was just a threadbare pipe dream." (57).

The irony here comes with O'Briens definition of the brave course of action: going to Canada. But why?

Yes, Vietnam is a risk and, true, one may never leave alive. However, if one does survive they can still return home to some semblance of the life they once knew. Canada, on the other hand, means a very real point of no return and a very real new beginning. Canada means leaving your unsupportive father and picking up hockey as a new hobby. Canada means goodbye to a best friend's I love you's and hello to your new oot and aboot neighbor. Canada means trading Grandma and Auntie Tess for Wayne Gretzky and Celine Dione.


Alright, just kidding about that last one... but seriously.

Choosing Vietnam, though, only means putting that now supportive father, that best friend's i love you's, Grandma, and Auntie Tess up as collateral in exchange for a gun and a few new brothers, each willing to take a bullet for you. Aside from your life (and maybe your mind) what do you really stand to lose?

The answer is quite simply, nothing. You have a home that will still feel like a home even if it's on the other side of the world. You have a family that still loves you even if it's on the other side of the world. You have hope. Hope is the blanket that you can wrap yourself in when bullets fly and the night is dark and oh so cold. It is hope that inspires your next breath. The absence of hope is fear. The absence of hope is Canada. Therefore, by the transitive property of mathematics (and of blogger rationalization) fear is Canada and Canada is fear. It would take more courage to go to Canada and face your fears than it would to go to Vietnam and cling to hope.


At least when you have hope you want to take your next breath. You know?