Related To Estrangement

It is hard to rule the world from a deluxe townhouse development on the outer rim of the suburbs. Where I, like the trees have been emasculated, their once viral phalanxes reduced to mulch only to be reborn as flaccid samplings rising from well manicured patches of sod. They bend, nearly creased, with the slightest passing breeze because they have neither the inner strength nor the outer shelter of other, more mature, trees to sustain them. It is a desert landscape punctuated by a small plastic oasis where one only spends the night before making the next journey back to civilization.

I am a nomad who utterly refuses to claim this place as his home. I traveled back to what I have always considered to be the center of the universe--my birthplace in northern New Jersey. I grew up there perched a top the first cliffs that rose beyond the elongated skyline of New York just pass the industrial sea of the Meadowlands. Every point west, north and south seemed like an arid wasteland in comparison to the vibrant metropolis I could see and smell from my bedroom window. This is my home; this is where my identity resonates from and yet I have not lived there in more than 15 years.

I visit often but only as a stranger, there are no longer familiar faces behind the doors on my street ready to welcome me into their kitchens and backyards to play. I can only pass them slowly in disbelief that I was ever a frequent guest in these homes. But it will never be to me what it once was and I am not sure that it ever truly was what I think it was to me. I have to let go off it, put it into perspective with who I have been for these past 15 years. I am afraid to really look forward; I am content to contingency plan for the future. I continue to upgrade the parts on the ship as I drift down the river so that I can be ready for whatever I encounter, but planning for any possibility leaves not time and resources for the one course that I should be on.

When it comes down to it, I just don't want to choose and I can feel a decision coming on. I was invited to hear Frank speak this morning and usually it is my practice to visit his church when he is scheduled to deliver the sermon; however, I could not bring myself to attend today. I couldn't bare to listen to the songs and hear the scriptures again. Christianity is like a beautiful woman with a tremendous amount of baggage. We were together once but it did not last and now as the years pass I have started to idealize her. But in reality she has let herself go, she no longer possess the curves that once drew me to her, underneath the emotion and poise is a body misshapen by fat and wrinkled by age. But if that is all that drew me to her in the beginning, did I ever really love her or is it all hope's propaganda. Perhaps, I never left her and she is my estranged spouse.

My life in two worlds has left me with little peace. I want to get away from the distraction of my duel obligations but I cannot. I am conflicted, what I want, I dare not have and what I have, I refuse to embrace. I keep telling myself that this is not me. That I am someone else, somewhere else. But that is a lie. I am here, for good or for ill. This is my place. I can run, but it is only as if on a treadmill, I can never leave where I am. I cannot escape the person I am or will become. This is the throne in my flesh.