a story on a myspace: i thought it was pretty good.. nice twist at the end
Track 3: I'm Coming Home Soon
Part three in a series of rants on my understanding of love and loss developed through the course of a three year relationship with Jamie. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This November I moved to Los Angeles. I’m recording an album with Stacy Jones, the singer of American HiFi, and his studio is located in Hollywood. So, I rent a room here, and we work every day on the recordings. Jamie is still in school, so she is staying in Redwood City. I don’t have any friends down here, and nothing looks like home. The air is thick with poisons and the streets are lonely and littered. I work, come home, sleep, work and miss my family. The only thing that’s getting me through is thinking about trips I’ve scheduled to visit home. ~*~ It’s the 18th, more than half way through the month we‘re working, and tomorrow morning I’m driving up to Redwood City to see my girlfriend, Jamie, in a musical. She loves acting and is unbelievably talented. I couldn’t be more excited to see her, if even for a night. Actually, I’m so excited, I really can’t sleep. So, around 3AM I get into the car and I start driving. It feels amazing to get out of Los Angeles. The city has become one of my worst enemies recently. I’ve been numb, I’ve been alone, I’ve been thinking of home, and I’m finally on my way out. Less than an hour into the drive I hit a traffic jam. I don’t get worked up, though. I just flip the seat back, roll the window down, and smile. Nothing could ruin this day for me. I inch forward for five hours, till my dashboard starts beeping and I realize I am out of gas. Not a problem today… I drive through a bush and over a curb on my last drops of fuel, hurdling obstacles like a jockey. I start driving on the first interstate I find, and it takes me into the mountains. My car stalls going down a hill, so I shift it to neutral and ride as far as it’ll take me… And by some token of fate I roll within inches of a mountain town . I push the car the remaining distance to the gas station, fill up, and head farther into the mountains. By mid-day I find my way out of the forest, and I’m somehow back in Los Angeles. I drove 10 hours in a huge circle. But that’s not a problem today. I get to see the girl I love, and nothing is going to ruin that. I turn around and hop on a new highway. Five hours later I make it home, and I have just enough time to run out and buy Jamie some flowers. It’s the weekend before Thanksgiving, so everything in the store looks like crap. All of the good stuff has already been plucked from the shelves, and I’m left with a poor selection. I don’t let it get me down, though. I just improvise. I start grabbing the best flowers out of each bouquet, and I combine all of them into a new bundle. I make sure to grab a lot of flowers that look like dandelions, because I think Jamie likes those a lot, but I can’t remember. I stop by home to shower and put on a nice shirt which I‘ve never worn before. I don’t dress up for anything, but tonight is an acceptation. I want her to see that I tried, so I wear it proudly. Jamie’s performance is outstanding and I almost cry several times. It might be because I had been driving for fifteen hours with no sleep, but I like to think it was her doing that to me. After she takes the last bow, I meet her in the lobby, and at the sight of her I break down. It’s more than I can take. I cry in the middle of a crowded room, and I don’t care at all. My face muscles contract against my will, my nose runs and my eyes heat up with tears. I’m in a bubble, this is the first time I’ve felt anything since I moved to Los Angeles. Jamie starts to cry, too, but I don’t think she knows why. She asks me if there’s something wrong and I tell her the truth, that I’m just happy to see her. I tell her how hard it’s been for me living away from everyone I love, and she asks me why I never called. I don’t think I’ll ever have a good answer for her. Then, without a second glance, she leaves. I won’t get to see her because she has a party to attend which is cast exclusive. I find out the next morning that this was a lie. I go home and continue crying. I don’t think I’ve cried in years and I don’t think I want to stop. I call Jamie, and she brushed me off. I call again, and again and I tell her that I need to see her before I go back to L.A. She tells me that she’ll head home and call me when she gets there, but I’m in no condition to sit around and wait. I grab a jacket and head out into one of the coldest nights I’ve touched in a long time. I walk around her neighborhood for almost an hour, pacing across the streets, in and out of the circles of light cast by the lamps. Sometimes I like to pretend I’m crazy, and I’ll act like I can’t control something. Some of the time I’ll do it as an act when Jamie and I are fighting so that she’ll pity me, because when we fight I’ll take anything I can get. A car pulls up. I see a girl and a guy get out, but I can’t see who they are because I’m down the block. The guy grabs the girl’s hand and walks her towards Jamie’s front door. They walk up to the front door, and the guy kisses my girlfriend. ~*~ It took me a month to dissect the situation, and I still don’t understand completely. I lost my girl, I lost my mind, and I lost my childhood, but I gained something powerful that night. I learned that time is a fog, and our memories are all lights on the shore.
