Thursday, December 23, 2004

night of truths

If I told you all the shit that went down tonight, you wouldn't believe me.

What else would happen when you mix people you used to hang out with in high school and haven't seen for two, maybe three years?

Como cambien la gente, in-fucking-deed.

See, let me explain. My friends and I grew up in Rancho Bernardo, a suburb of San Diego that has the reputation of being bourgeois and snobby. North County. Good schools, good neighborhoods, few minorities or challenges. Kids here grow up in a bubble. And everyone finds their own special way of rebellion.

If you don't find it in high school, you get the fuck as far away from RB as you can possibly go and you rebel like crazy in college. If you rebel or you want to rebel in high school, you're not so much hiding it from your parents; you're hiding it from your friends. Everyone is shocked if you've smoked pot/slept with someone/gotten drunk. Everyone is naive and innocent...at face value. There are no challenges here- except for maturity.

All I've ever needed to know about living I learned in college.

All I've ever needed to know about keeping secrets I learned in Rancho Bernardo.

Which is why, to buy a pack of cigarettes and drive drive drive out into the as yet untouched (but certainly plotted and sold) wilderness of RB with two friends who've got shit on their minds and they can't hide it any more, at 3 in the morning, coming home is such a big fucking deal.

It's good to dwell on the past, sometimes, but only if you know what you're going to do with the future.

What do you do with the knowledge that someone you went to Europe with summer before your senior year had every intention of a fling with you- and the truth is, you felt the same? Why didn't it happen? Why were we so clueless and hopeless about living? Are they joking when they say, 'how about a threesome?' now, in the present, and are you joking when you say you're sorely tempted? How is it possible for people to be so seemingly close, grow apart in college, and then realize that maturation is only a parallel zigzag with a detour at the end?

Honesty is a fucking powerful thing.

And there's nothing like alcohol and an at-odd-hours drive into deserted country to bring the best out of people.

Ask me about it sometime, and I'll tell you the story.