Welcome Back

Welcome back, your dreams were your ticket out…

For sure. My dreams, though never defined, definitely involved traveling abroad, determined to make it out of my jacked-up neighborhood and even more jacked-up town. I’d left once before several years ago and came back, so technically this is round two. In both cases, wherever I was traveling in the world, there was an ever present thought in the back of my mind. It was there on the island of Koh Chang in Thailand, while walking along the beach in the moonlight with a French girl I’d just met, almost too pretty to be real. It was there at a party in the Swedish embassy in Tokyo, wine glass in hand, surrounded by rich types, feeling like an extra in a Bond movie. It was with me at Café de Flore in Paris, as I sipped my café avec Chantilly and nibbled on a croissant. I made sure to enjoy every minute of every moment. Because I knew. I knew I was on borrowed time. Sooner or later the jig would be up and I’d have to return to my reality. Sure enough, here I am, back home where I started.

Welcome back to that same old place that you laughed about…

Sort of. Except, I complained about it more than I laughed. From the cracked and crooked sidewalks, to the abandoned factories, the old “hood” was exactly just as I left it: OLD. One of the reasons for leaving home in the first place was because where I grew up really and truly sucked. After my one year escape from prison, I thought maybe, just maybe, things might have changed, even if just a little. Wishful thinking. If anything, it’s gotten worse, with an uptick in shady dealings and a back alley murder thrown in for good measure.

Well, the names have all changed since you hung around…

Yes and no. The new neighbors are just as noisy as the old ones and the same broken looking folks are shuffling around down at the local poor excuse of a shopping mall. I still see the same crazies in the streets. Same haggard people on the bus heading downtown. Familiarity breeds contempt.

But those dreams have remained and they've turned around…

Have they? Do I still have my dream of leaving? Making it out of this place? The desire’s still there, but I’m beginning to feel resigned to a fate of working at the local Dairy Queen full time in summer, collecting unemployment checks in winter joining the retired blue-haired elderly and woebegone at the mall. I’m hoping the universe keeps pulling me back here for a reason other than making me feel like I’m in a particularly sad episode of the Twilight Zone where I’m forced to live out the same fate with slight variations on a continuous loop. I’ve just been handed lemons again. Better get busy making lemonade.

Who'd have thought they'd lead ya, back here where we need ya…

Exactly. My mind is still in shallow and turquoise waters off a Mallorcan coast, as the sun beams down brightly from a cloudless sky. My reality is sitting on my parents’ lumpy sofa making lemonade (aka job hunting online) for most of the day. Hopefully somebody out there is in need of a teacher/freelance writer obsessed with pop culture. Hey- Mr. Kotter got lucky maybe I will too.

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back!