October 2nd, 2023 - Bruises

Dear TNY,

My life is a fucking movie and I’m at the part of the plot where we transition from heightened perfection to the fires of conflict into the realm of the deep, deep understanding…and you have given us “Bruises”.

And, gotta say, loved it. Well, maybe I didn’t “love” it, but I really appreciated it.

I’m here to say I did not cry.  I did not transcend the plane.  But I was emotionally invested in the MC and I thought the narrative was fucking golden. 

Actually, I want to tell you about that, but right now I need to say my sheeeeiiiiit (shout out to Bo Burnham, who, in this song, did what I wish I could do: he faced the enemy, he said the things, he called us all out, including himself, and we are all left wondering exactly what he meant by “I hope you’re happy” (my take is that he meant EVERYTHING)).

Someone came to visit me.  She got here Friday.  And…I think I’m done.  I think I’m done looking.  Like, I can’t even really get into it.  It’s too big to talk about without crying and/or feeling pure happiness/eternal dread.  It’s so much. 

Really, I just want to tell you about yesterday.  We went snorkeling and ended up swimming far from where I usually do (because these fucking useless tourists with their life vests and battery-powered, personal water jet vehicles; fuck you America, do the work to see cool shit or accept your flabby, courageless lives aren’t worth the fucking toilet paper you wipe your ass with).  And because of said flabby Americans, I swam into a pod of spinner dolphins, around seven, two babies and some adults, and one fella that looked me dead in the eyes and started swimming to me.  And that led to some trumpet fish turning color.  Which led to Our Lord and Savior, the Underwater Buddha.  And then a gigantic school of yellow-tailed amberjack.  And then a fatty male monk seal swam laps around us, getting as close as eight feet.  Just playing with us, really.  And then on the way back, what did we find?  A fucking bigboy octopus.  And we watched him change color and texture many times, like some kind of alien.  And I got a little too close and he inked, man.  A fucking octopus inked me at the tail end of a perfect day of snorkeling in one of the world’s most beautiful places while I was with its most beautiful citizen nursing a bad case of humanity’s most beautiful condition.  We went home and laughed and cried and danced and we were nice to each other.  We were Nice.  WE WERE NICE. 

I don’t know why I’m telling you this.  You don’t care.  I want to tell you she saw me.  She saw how special I am and thanked me over and over and over for existing and for seeing her.  She watched me like a piece of art and was grateful that I was arting just for her.

So, natch, I’m terrified.  Not to say I’m frozen.  I’m moving forward.  But I’m terrified.  Because I have something to lose now (as does she) and that’s a lot to be a part of.  It’s a lot to hold.  On one hand, the most mature thing would be to understand what a privilege all of this is, no matter how it ends, and not hold it all so tightly, instead letting it flow through me and just be grateful for every single moment I get.  And on the other hand, I could respond with insecurities and fear, thereby damning it to hell.

Ugh.

Anyway, this story smacks of the gritty shorts from the eighties.  It just has that feel to it.  Which I’m a fan of.  Such a simple story.  The language is excellent.  The narrative is well told.  It was all just so…classic.  And not your fucking speed, TNY.  It was a product of a bygone era.  And I loved that about it.

So I’m left wondering why I didn’t transcend the plane.  I didn’t get the feels, even though I was invested in the MC, completely.  Lots to think about I guess.  But as I sit here sipping my second beer at the taphouse down the way while the home inspector is doing up my apartment, the place I’ll spend my last night on island, and I’m waiting for a text to let me know I can go home…Home…this little apartment, which housed such tenderness and love and was a jump off point for my boys and I all over this island for adventures that they won’t soon forget and now all my shit is packed into two totes and a duffel and Trash Panda is sold and this chapter is closing and I’m reminded of that time I left Chuck to come here and was sad then too because I just so desperately wanted someone to see me, see my life, see what I was doing and what I was capable of and what I had to offer to a partnership which is not nothing and for that person to be so fucking excited that I was a bot of electrified meat on this little bubble of water and air flying through space from nowhere to somewhere else with no reason to exist that we know of, but there, in one corner pocket of this delicious place, there I was, quietly singing my own song of beauty wishing that someone would hear it as their favorite song, and then it happens, man, and all this life just gets folded up and the world’s bravest soft man is destroying his life once again, “life” meaning time/place/community, and this fella is going to soar out again, sadness in his eyes, leaving amazing shit behind and going to amazing shit ahead and still, why do I have to keep doing this thing that hurts so much but I know there probably isn’t another way, which is making me sad even though I have the most exciting thing for a future I may have ever had so I should shut the fuck up and stuff the fear down and take the fuck off and soar like those goddamn space whales in Ahsoka, but instead I’m worried about implicit expectations and the insanity of beating your own bullshit into submission so you can be happy, so, yeah, as I’m sitting here sipping this beer I’m feeling like maybe there’s just so much at play that I’m not even sure how to emote, but the thing I think I have my finger on the pulse of is that what’s happening right now is rarer than rare and I need to not fuck it up, but also not fuck myself up in the process of not fucking it up.

What I need to do is really love, selflessly and with compersion, but goddamn it do I need my handheld, okay? 

Jesus Christ, your boy Nicholas is unravelling over here. 

What else is new?

Anyway, this story is worth reading even though it doesn’t transcend the plane.  The surprise of that 80’s grit is worth it.

See you next week, from somewhere not Hawaii, a place that I’ll miss deeply.

Nick

P.S. I didn’t know how much the Padres logo looked like a swastika until right now.

P.P.S I was half asleep writing this and even though I want to say it’s because I stayed up with the drugs in me and had laughs and laughs and laughs all fucking night so I don’t care about the quality of this work…I care about the quality of this work.