I AM A DREAMER...

I remember walking home from school on the TRAIN TRACKS like it was yesterday.  On a Fall afternoon leaves fell perfectly from the trees on both sides of the tracks like cartoon snowflakes from the sky.  I could see ahead for miles.  I swore those tracks were never ending.  Alone, balancing on the rails, then falling into the middle and stepping over every other railroad tie, the DAYDREAMING began.  I felt as if I was in an alternate universe.

I was only 12, but that's when the opportunities seemed endless.  At that age you have no idea what you'll be doing with your life and that was okay, but I still thought about it.  Would I go to college?  Would I see the world?  Was I going to be a blue collar laborer like my father?  Maybe.  Or would I be different?  I didn't know.  But I did believe I was going to play for the JETS, retire after 10 years and 2 Super Bowls rings, become the Governor of New Jersey, and eventually become the President of the United States.  Not too shabby for a kid from the TERRACE.  It was so easy to escape back on those tracks.

While I was in school I thought, "All I have to do here is actually LEARN something."  That shouldn't have been too difficult.  I mean that's what we go to school for, isn't it?  I figured if I read as many books as possible, played sports and followed my parent's good examples it would be easy to get out of here.  But nothing is ever easy... Even at 12.

English was always my favorite subject in school.  I hated math.  My 4th grade teacher always smiled when she handed me back one of my papers.  She would say, "You should write as much as you can."  Let's just say that made me happy because the smiles were few and far between when it came to math tests.  She actually gave me my first journal.  It was one of those BLACK AND WHITE composition notebooks.  You know, the ones that cost 99 cents at Rite Aid.  Everyone in the class got one.  When she handed it to me she said, "You can write in this whenever you want; it doesn't have to be just for assignments."  To this day when I want to stop writing, I think of that moment.  Although she was speaking to the entire class, I felt like she was only talking to me.  So I started writing.

I didn't really understand writing in a journal at first, but I still wrote in it every day outside of class... In secret of course.  I thought only girls wrote in journals and DIARIES.  God Forbid anyone found out I was keeping a diary.  I would have had to kick their ass... IN FRONT OF EVERYONE to prove my manliness.  I know now none of that matters, but keeping up your REP in Gym class and the Cafeteria was important back then.  My motivation for keeping a journal was so I would have the ability to look back in 20 years and see where I was at that exact moment.  For some reason that was extremely appealing to me.

My only REGRET is I didn't write all the time.  I didn't keep it up.  I took too many breaks.  I slacked off.  I was either busy playing sports, watching movies, or hanging out with girls and friends.  Maybe I was writing things on bathroom walls and closets with permanent markers or spray painting tags on local bridges on the Parkway, but I can't recall.  It took a huge break-up in college with the love of my life to get me back on the writing TRAIN.  Even though I was sad and depressed, writing saved me.  And since that moment, I've been making note of everything.  A lot has happened in the interim, but now the memories are much clearer cause I wrote them down.

Recently, I've felt like people are only reading things that are FUNNY.  FUNNY blogs.  Funny articles.  Some of these people don't even read FUNNY things.  They watch them... On YOUTUBE.  Technology is making us LAZY.  I hate it.  And what the hell is even funny anymore?  Hasn't it all been covered?  Silly topics about exploiting others and being a dickhead have been documented.  Seeing Jesus Christ's face on a stone in Argentina... Been done.  Reading about your favorite rapstar making an ass out himself at the MTV music awards has been covered.  What's left?  How about PURE stories.  Where have they gone?  I want to see something ORIGINAL... That's if there's anything left to write about.  Well, I believe there is.  Most people write to get attention, not cause they have to.  I think I have to.

So instead of looking back at tender age of 28 wondering how the HELL I got here... I know.  Countless days lost due to daydreaming.  Good times.  Bad times.  Births.  Deaths.  Friends and lovers have come and gone like pigeons from the rooftops.  My glory days playing sports have vanished.  I haven't seen those train tracks in years. Come and gone soon all will be lost.  But one thing never dies... A real DREAM.  A goal.  A reason to work hard.  A reason to move on.  Something to look forward to.  The written word.