Remembering/Forgetting two of the hardest years of my life

When I was 25 I was addicted.

To cigarettes, no. Alcohol - that was earlier. Hardcore drugs, not quite. When I was 25 I was addicted to Houston, Texas. I couldn't get enough.

Houston is a very large, very full city full of warm smiling people and 24 hour restaurants of every different sort. There's no zoning in the city proper so the streets are all crooked, cracked, and disproportional, kind of like some of the houses, and the people also. The residents of Houston, TX are unlike any you meet anywhere else. They look different, they act different, and some of them talk a little bit different. People are very interesting looking and beautiful; dark exotic combinations of Hispanic and Asian genes. And you also have your standard silver-haired Texecutives and Bottle Blondes with tits to Jupiter; all with varying degrees of southern twang, and all friendly. I loved every bit of it and I still do.

I don't get there as much anymore but I think probably the greatest memories I have from my 20s, which are going to end in a minute (an event for which I will not shed a single tear as I am probably the happiest person in the history of the universe to be turning 30; believe it), originated in Houston. The last time I drank until I puked was in Houston, TX (hopefully we will leave this memory fondly in place in Houston and not drag it to another city to be revisited any time soon). Alexa and I kicked ass at the pool table that night too. I sank 6 or 7 shots in a row and then fucked up by scratching on the 8 ball - not uncommon for me. The first time I played piano for a large audience and got PAID was there at Leon's lounge and it occurred on some out of tune baby grand with a collection of perfect strangers who threw money at me for playing pretty much the only songs I can well enough; Love Song and Wicked Game. I drank for free that night. And of course, my best memories are of the friends I met from going there time after time.

I couldn't make friends in my own city. The reason why used to be a mystery to me, one that I grieved over. It wasn't rocket science. Being young, and new to a strange place so different from the one where I grew up with its cacti and sand in lieu of green trees and gray skies, one where I didn't really know a single soul, still carrying a strong residue of my awkward teenage years provided an atmosphere that catered to retreat. I tried and tried to break out of my shell and just kept getting more exhausted. Something was wrong, and as grateful as I was (and still am) to have had the support of a few coworkers holding me up, this kind of support was not very well-received as it was received under some very false pretenses.

But thats done now. Its a new day. I'm reflecting because I managed to stir up a very strong memory tonight on one of my tragic melodramatic trips down memory lane. I happened to drive by the apartment complex where I used to live and so I swung in, parked the car and took a little walk. Most of the people I knew there are gone; thats how it goes with apartments. The doors and walls of all of the units had been painted these varying lush and somewhat red versions of terra cotta (these colors are popular here, who knows what they're called - blood in the sand, perhaps?) from their former color, which I don't even remember now.

It looked good. There was a candy machine and a coke machine next to the ancient pepsi machine out by the pool - which I never used until I moved out. I strolled past them on the path up to my old place - apartment 1023. I proceeded past it, as I'm obviously not going to go in and camp out in front of the couch drinking diet pepsi all night and playing guitar like I would have if I lived there, passing the apartment next to it, which seemed to no longer be inhabited by the nice elderly German lady who was my neighbor (she was in her 80s), and the apartment next to that (which no longer had the plants I had become so accustomed to seeing out on the front porch) toward the parking lot. I couldnt even remember which spot had been mine.

I've forgotten much of it already, but somehow I get this feeling that the apartment itself has not. I almost want to knock on the door and ask the newbies if they can feel my emotional stain still in place. I guess I didn't realize it at the time, but I was very unhappy within those 700 square feet of space. Maybe they ought to rub the place down with sage. As I came back down the walk though, heading toward my car, I did remember one thing. In early 2007, after returning from a refreshing week in Houston where we had celebrated a new friend's 24th birthday that has lived on in legend ever since, I strolled down that path with my suitcase behind me, popping and rolling over the squares of sidewalk, to find my lease renewal within the jaws of the clip on the wall just beside my door handle. I remember sitting in Alexa's car that morning in Houston, telling a friend how much I did not want to return to Phoenix and seeing the lease hanging by my door just cemented it into place.

Thankfully its a new day (with many new people ;) Thankfully my life is in a better place; one thats more comfortable. Someone I still respect a lot told me once that when it comes to jobs and cities and..well, everything, "You're going to move around until you're comfortable." Since then I've learned to be watchful of the things that make me uncomfortable. Its tricky business.

These things sometimes come in a form I do not expect.