Memphis in the Rearview

It was May of 1994. I'd just turned eighteen. I'd officially come out of the closet after telling my mother I was gay. I had graduated high school. And after thirty years of marriage, my father walked out on us.

Being a closeted teenager filled with angst and sexual frustration, I already had a lot of animosity toward my father, but his leaving only made things worse between us. I decided to attend the local community college that fall because I didn't want to leave my mother at home alone.

I blamed my father for having to put my life on hold, but like most teenagers at that point in their lives, I had no idea where I was going. I didn't know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. But just one year later, I had my sights set on Memphis.

Memphis was just an hour and a half south of my close-minded, small-town home. I'd already been sneaking off there on late weekend nights to go to gay bars. I took day trips there with friends to go shopping at the unique little shops and the giant shopping malls. Memphis just felt right. I felt like I could be myself there. For once in my life, I felt like I could breathe.

It was tough saying goodbye to Mom. She cried. I cried. But I knew that if I didn't go, I'd never leave home. I already felt trapped there. Mom assured me she'd be okay. Despite the short distance between us, Memphis still felt so far away.

I moved into the dorm that fall. I got a job. I met my first real boyfriend on opening night at a new gay bar. He broke up with me—and broke my heart—just a few months later. I moved out of the dorm and into a townhouse with a coworker friend.

Three years passed. I got a better job. I quit college. I moved again. I dated other guys. I broke their hearts. I turned 21. Between working a full-time job in the day and dancing in bars and clubs all night on the weekends, I still had no idea what I wanted out of life. I was searching for something, but I had no idea what it was.

I was impatient. I felt alone. I wanted a long-term relationship. I wanted love. I wanted to leave Memphis. What I needed was someone to tell me that it was okay to be lost in life right now. I'd barely scratched the surface when it came to living.

Three more years flew by. I'd been climbing up the corporate ladder at my retail job. I was training to be a store manager. I still thought I needed someone to make me happy, but I was tired of looking for them in this city. I told my job I'd be willing to move if they let me. They let me.

I'd only been to St. Louis once. That was for an overnight field trip back in high school. But I liked the city back then, so why not? I drove to St. Louis to find an apartment. I visited what would soon be my very own store. I had two weeks left in Memphis. I said my goodbyes to my friends. I didn't know anyone in St. Louis, but I was ready for a new page. I needed this new beginning. For the first time, I finally felt like I knew what I wanted.

Then, we watched the Twin Towers fall on a tiny television in the break room on my very last workday in Memphis. The next day, I watched the news coverage at home while movers packed up my belongings all around me. I wondered if I was making a mistake. Just as I felt like I finally had a grasp on where my life was going, the entire country was spinning out of control.

The following morning I hugged my roommate and said goodbye. I didn't know it at the time, but I would never see him again. I watched Memphis disappear in my rearview mirror. I turned on a local radio station and listened to them take song requests in honor of 9/11 until I was too far along the highway to pick up the station anymore.

Some of my friends would come and visit, and I'd come back to visit them. Others left Memphis to find their new beginnings. But time and distance changes everything between people. It changes who we are. We say we need to catch up and visit, but the internet has made it too easy to think we're staying in touch. The phone doesn't ring. There's no knock at the door. We've got different lives to live, and we've been living them too long to look back on who we were back then.

The bars we loved have all closed down, and there's no one left in the city. Memphis and those memories seem so far away. And now, it's been twenty years. I've moved around. I've changed jobs a few times. I've lived in St. Louis longer than I even lived at home. I found someone to love and who loves me.

We move around. We make friends. We break hearts and allow our hearts to get broken. We change homes, change jobs, and change cities. But the only way to figure out who we are is by living a life and appreciating the people and the places who shaped us along the way.

I still don't know what I want in life, but that's okay. It's taken twenty years to figure out I don't have to know. And it's taken those twenty years to figure out who I am.