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Notes From The Flip Side: 04.09.2000

A Portrait of the Author at 27:

Apparently I'm M.I.A. This was news to me. However, several friends of mine emailed me to let me know that my high school's reunion committee is looking for me. I told my friends that, if they were so inclined, they could tell the organizers that I was best left unfound.

I didn't like high school then. I like the concept even less now. Someone made the argument that I could go and listen to the music that I hated and make fun of it, and laugh at the people I didn't like then. My response was simple: why?

I listen to music I love, and I see no reason to derive amusement from the misery or misfortune of others. I refuse to participate in reviving the pettiness of conflicts and cliques long dead, even for a night. The world is mean and cold enough as it is; I refuse to add to it. Petty insults, snide comments and superiority complexes are weaknesses and I refuse to succumb to them.

I'll spend that night with friends, or alone. Either choice is better than bringing back our hollow hearts and ideas of how things were supposed to be.

None of us seems to understand that the past is gone and its only value comes from the lessons we should have learned years ago and so we find ourselves nostalgic for nothing that we can identify. We yearn for something better to fill the emptiness of broken hearts and unfulfilled dreams and search for panaceas wherever we might find them. In their stead, we find only mirrors, reflecting our meaningless ambitions and smallminded actions back at us.

My self portrait is this - I won't be weak anymore. I'll get knocked down, but I'll get back up and I'll always have a steady shoulder at the ready for someone else to lean on. I can't change the past, but I can change how my brothers and sisters and I move forward from here - arm in arm, heart to heart and eye to eye; open, honest and trusting in ourselves and what we have between us. It's a bond that no one can ever break.

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Fastbreak, Hot Water Music, The Rachels, Lifetime, The Dragons, Saves The Day, Jawbreaker

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Last modified on Wednesday, March 26, 2008