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Jan. 29th, 2007 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogThough I was frequently up until the wee hours of the morning through my high school years, my brain too busy to shut down and let me sleep until I'd satiated it with a few hundred pages of fantasy, I haven't had that problem much lately. Tonight though, I find myself with a continuous stream, even a torrent, of flickering thoughts and flowing ideas.
I had such a great weekend with two wonderful traveling companions! Thoughts of meeting two new friends in Michigan, visiting some special restaurants like Xochimilco and Sala Thai, and of climbing once again to the top of Michigan Central Station, this time not alone. Memories of driving down Gratiot once again and stopping randomly into the Big!Lots and the Sunshine Thrift that I remember so well. Thoughts of the change I've seen in downtown Detroit; the many buildings that are being rehabbed and the few that are in the midst of an even more thorough redevelopment; demolition. Thoughts of the stretches of highway that I remember so very well from my trips back and forth to see my girlfriend; the giant Uniroyal tire and the rest stops made familiar through frequent use.
It was really surprising how much of a sense of nostalgia I felt being in this place again. Andrea has often asked if the apartment in Warren ever felt truly like home. Maybe that's one of those things that one can't really answer without a certain chronological detachment. As she's asked me that question over the few years since we left, I was never entirely sure of my answer. Now that I've been there again, I am. Though I was so far away from my family and friends when I was out in Michigan, and though, for a little puppy who'd never before lived away from his parents, it was a great big terrifying unknown when I first moved out there, It really did become my home.
To be honest, I think that anywhere could be home, so long as my mate were there, be it Michigan, Wisconsin, or the other side of the world. And beyond that, I can't imagine being happier than where I am now, near my parents and brothers and friends who mean so much to me. But the part of me that came to know and love the little bit of Michigan that I called home for those two amazing, tumultuous years, came very much to the fore this past weekend and gave me my answer for Andrea. That cramped little apartment in a mediocre neighborhood of a Detroit suburb really was my home; there'll be a part of me, the same part that always looks back to days gone by and, bittersweet, whispers of all the good that those days held, breaths not a word about the bad things now forgotten, and teases that those days are now forever gone, that misses that apartment dearly.
Louder though is the part that takes in all the wonder of the past, connects it with the magic of the present, and says that right now is the place that the whole rest of my life has brought me. Right now is the sum of everything that's gone by, and it's greater than its parts. If I were to look back at the past and really believe that my best moments are gone, that is when my life would begin its end. But right now, though there are bits of Detroit that I miss, as there are bits of every stage of my life that I miss, I am happy. I am warm and safe in my cozy little computer room, my wife, my mate, my lover, my friend asleep in the next room over. Just a few blocks away, in the house that I grew up in, are the rest of the most important people in my life. Tonight was spent in the loving company and embrace of my dear one and I'm so damned happy to be right where I am tonight that I just want to explode in fireworks of joy.
And I think, now that I've taken a few of those rivulets of thoughts and moved them out of my head and onto what passes for paper, I can lie down and sleep. Good night all! I'll write something more thorough about the events of the past week as time permits. Thank you all for being my friends.
I had such a great weekend with two wonderful traveling companions! Thoughts of meeting two new friends in Michigan, visiting some special restaurants like Xochimilco and Sala Thai, and of climbing once again to the top of Michigan Central Station, this time not alone. Memories of driving down Gratiot once again and stopping randomly into the Big!Lots and the Sunshine Thrift that I remember so well. Thoughts of the change I've seen in downtown Detroit; the many buildings that are being rehabbed and the few that are in the midst of an even more thorough redevelopment; demolition. Thoughts of the stretches of highway that I remember so very well from my trips back and forth to see my girlfriend; the giant Uniroyal tire and the rest stops made familiar through frequent use.
It was really surprising how much of a sense of nostalgia I felt being in this place again. Andrea has often asked if the apartment in Warren ever felt truly like home. Maybe that's one of those things that one can't really answer without a certain chronological detachment. As she's asked me that question over the few years since we left, I was never entirely sure of my answer. Now that I've been there again, I am. Though I was so far away from my family and friends when I was out in Michigan, and though, for a little puppy who'd never before lived away from his parents, it was a great big terrifying unknown when I first moved out there, It really did become my home.
To be honest, I think that anywhere could be home, so long as my mate were there, be it Michigan, Wisconsin, or the other side of the world. And beyond that, I can't imagine being happier than where I am now, near my parents and brothers and friends who mean so much to me. But the part of me that came to know and love the little bit of Michigan that I called home for those two amazing, tumultuous years, came very much to the fore this past weekend and gave me my answer for Andrea. That cramped little apartment in a mediocre neighborhood of a Detroit suburb really was my home; there'll be a part of me, the same part that always looks back to days gone by and, bittersweet, whispers of all the good that those days held, breaths not a word about the bad things now forgotten, and teases that those days are now forever gone, that misses that apartment dearly.
Louder though is the part that takes in all the wonder of the past, connects it with the magic of the present, and says that right now is the place that the whole rest of my life has brought me. Right now is the sum of everything that's gone by, and it's greater than its parts. If I were to look back at the past and really believe that my best moments are gone, that is when my life would begin its end. But right now, though there are bits of Detroit that I miss, as there are bits of every stage of my life that I miss, I am happy. I am warm and safe in my cozy little computer room, my wife, my mate, my lover, my friend asleep in the next room over. Just a few blocks away, in the house that I grew up in, are the rest of the most important people in my life. Tonight was spent in the loving company and embrace of my dear one and I'm so damned happy to be right where I am tonight that I just want to explode in fireworks of joy.
And I think, now that I've taken a few of those rivulets of thoughts and moved them out of my head and onto what passes for paper, I can lie down and sleep. Good night all! I'll write something more thorough about the events of the past week as time permits. Thank you all for being my friends.
