an open space

Last night was ridiculous and unwise and all my fault.

Jenny, Lance, Peter, Jacob, Tim, Brian, and I piled into my car (2 of them in my trunk), too late and grumpy, completely unable to agree on the music we should listen to or where we should go, the only thing we shared in common in these moments were the loathing of homework and responsibility and the North American Adventist School System.

I had bottles of spray paint in the netted pockets of my car, and we tagged dormant train cars, benign phrases completely devoid substance or meaning. (Tyler Durham would have shook his head in shame). Lance drew a huge "H" and a smiley face, Peter wrote an obscure bible verse that he had never looked up, I wrote "feel good revolution", too messy to even discern, while Jacob painted a huge brown dot, and then ran back to the car.

Peter tells me that I am the only person he knows that is always the same, in groups or on my own, completely transparent at all times. So when I dropped the other guys back off at the dorm, I was not very good at hiding that something was the matter. My friends suggested we drive somewhere to talk, and I passionately ranted about my broken dysfunctional relationships. I ended up down a dirt road by the WWVA field, sodden from the afternoon of rain, and mid-rant, got stuck in a marsh. Brian and Tim tried pushing the car out, but minutes away from my curfew, we ended up calling Jacob to pick us up, who we had dropped back off at his house just before driving out.

Jack came, without ropes or chains, clad monopoly pajama pants and disheveled hair. It being the middle of the night, minutes before curfew, we decided to leave my car in the field to worry about in the morning. But as we drove back on the main road, a cop was waiting for us, saying he got a call from someone in the neighborhood who saw us drive out. He stuck his face in the window, "I smell alcohol," he said sternly, "Have you guys been drinking?" We all shook our heads, we hadn't had a drop all night (nor do I ever). Jenny and Jacob explained our dilemma, and after examining Jacob's license, the cop told us to go home and go to bed.

We nodded and left, arriving at the dorm just after curfew, shoes I designed and hand-drew myself completely soaked in muddy water, the colors of marker bleeding into one another, mud caked on my calves, my car still stuck in the field. And I went to bed embarrassed at all of the trivial things I valued, thinking of all the things I have in my heart, that all of my choices, completely motivated by fear, might just be jeopardizing some of the best things I might ever experience, or who I might experience them with.

Alban is right. Late at night, people are much more emotional and act very differently.
Sometimes I wish the risks I took could be in broad daylight, worthwhile things that take real courage, and that I could show you that, for me, you make everything brighter.