Love Letters to Anne

By 17, I had entered the dark world of the night. I slept late as I could before work and then contemplated where I would be at 3 am later on. I would go to the midnight movies and hang around as I was employed at least twice by the local movie theatre where I had many friends at the time.

We partied together deep into the nights. Listening to The Police and Sting, Duran Duran and all the eighties regulars. Dancing in the streets while you slept. Watching midnight movies together like Pink Floyd's, The Wall and Rocky Horror Picture Show. We were lost, all of us frightened in the face of the uncertainty of the future and what it would hold for us...I had a dread they didn't, couldn't know as I had been through horror. But I kept the evil potential of the world out of my friends minds as I kept that horror to myself. Let sweet oblivion come! Eat, drink and be merry! For tomorrow we die! But only a few of us actually died back then. The rest of us had to deal with that and continue somehow with our lives amidst emotions we weren't ready for.

But usually, it was just one good time into another. No responsibilities that would encroach on my lifestyle, but time was quickly running out and I knew it. I was going to need an answer by the time I was 18. And that was approaching rapidly. Let oblivion come.

We were getting wasted out back in a friends' car while we waited for the end of the ten o'clock movies.

The mall had been closed for hours and security were friends. We owned the night. Late nights in the parking lot to loud music, and we danced endlessly…oblivion was bliss.

It was during this time I met a like minded individual at a party of these characters' creation....his name was Swedish in origin, and unusual to me. He himself was very chill, but didn't tolerate bullshit. I liked him immediately. He turned out to be my oldest friend from these days.

Anyway, we plotted and planned our world domination through art and word, and we would express the inexpressible and bring it to the masses and be well known and respected...but then life comes knocking and loves come and go, and people and situations change for you and your friends and priorities change, time becomes precious. Life moves you down the river and you lose touch for a bit, but then life brings back the ones who belong to you and who you belong to.

We passed each other in parties and would always chat each other up, what are you working on now? Write anything lately? Yeah? Cool. Then I remember the Pink Floyd concert and running into him as we filed out of the stadium. THAT, was a great night! We set up our intentions and he went into the Army, I stayed behind trying to survive here.

About a year goes by and I'm taking solace in a Renaissance Festival and who do I run into but my very close friend? His long blond hair, a trademark of sorts, gone. Sporting the Army buzz. Well, I didn't care at all. I was glad he was back in town. Little did I know he would rescue me about a year later. But that's another story.

So, in our original group, Only he and I remained in my orbit. Everyone else had gone a different way than I had. And truth be told, for awhile there, I was deep in the pit of the Void. I pushed away just about everyone since I didn't believe anyone would stay by themselves. I wouldn't have the life of lots of lifelong friends. Just a few. And they meant everything to me. Some still do. But I was deep into using acid as I was looking for metaphysical answers and I felt so close that I kept dropping and started dropping bigger and bigger amounts. I was always stoned if I was given the choice, and ready to drink at any time of the day. I was lost in this for years, but I usually got everything taken care of. Usually. There were times, unfortunately, that I fell between the cracks.

And it was during one of these times he came back into my life and offered me a great opportunity to live with him.

Hell yeah!