The Disconnected Series, Volume I

Sometimes I want so badly to purge myself on these digital pages and empty my emotional resevoir of all its contents. But I slowly come to realize, that I am not in need of that kind of therapy anymore. Everyone needs to vent sometimes, but in the process of growing up fast, I lost the need to act out as a result of not knowing how to handle myself.

I played those three punk rock chords hard for many years, and lived the life of every outsider teenager. My ideals were tattooed into my very skin so that I would always hold true to them; unity, equality, truth, and justice. I marched, rallied, protested, demonstrated, and lived for what I believed. But we all grow up, right? And not just in the stagnant growing into oblivion way, we all grow up to gain perspective on our lives and most importatnly that which makes us who we are. At some point, our childhood becomes our adolescence, and our adolesence becomes our attitude. The preverbial punk rock doctrine of beliefs, which in its own right is a contradiction of the punk ethic. It means nothing of course, but it is not completely valueless.

There were many armchair sessions spent talking about my father, with whom no descernable relationship existed, even though I saw him every day. Neither of us grasped that concept of communication, which is now spread over 300 miles and a telephone bill. He sends me checks in the mail every month, and somehow, without guilt, I cash them. We're still trying to make it work, the only way we know.