Tonight was Thursday, which usually means sparring night at my Tae Kwon Do class. My little sister couldn’t go because she’s sick, so I got dressed up, put on a jacket and got in the truck. Thirty seconds into the drive I realized I wasn’t in a kick-and-be-kicked mood, so I made an early turn into an hour long drive around town.
I always complain about how small this town is, but it still shocks me a bit how every square foot of this place has a memory attached to it.
I drive by a park where a girl explained why she didn’t love me.
A gas station sign where I took a picture with a girl who nearly destroyed me.
The high school which seems a thousand lifetimes away.
The park where I first kissed Laura goodbye.
The Blockbuster my dad took us to all the time when we were little.
The library where I filmed Switch.
Our little town, Rancho Pe?asquitos, is like all the girls that never loved me back: I don’t want for her to accept me now, but I wish she had treated me better.
I went back up to Hilltop Park as I did a year and ten days ago, though without a camera this time. My outfit looks how I feel here: a Tae Kwon Do uniform, black Converse without socks, and a green zipup sweater. I think about NYU, about high school, about how little would change if I could “do it all over again”, about writing this entry, and mostly I think about the people I know and have known and that it’s comforting that not a single one of them is thinking about me at this moment. I sit on the edge of a dirty concrete table and bathe in the gorgeous view of my school that Hilltop has until my fingers get wrinkly and my memories start clogging the drain.
It’s like the end of some teenage drama flick where the kid doesn’t get what or who he wants, but instead realizes that he is young and it doesn’t matter that he’s stuck in this copy of a copy of a town because he has a billion more chances to get it right once he gets out.
Hey, I guess I just did.