in a little diner in nowhere, MA.
Sunday. bright. loud open space, partners in workout clothes having sweaty breakfasts with dirt on their shins. phone-entranced high schoolers at a begrudging weekend brunch with mothers and fathers or maybe stepmothers and stepfathers, family not forged but found.
me, haggard, surrounded by ten friends wrapping up a bachelor party weekend, all sorts of baggage subdued but manifesting as chest pain and sweat.
it reminds me of the breakfast spot in my hometown, the heaping mounds of pancakes, the townie conversations between high schooler waiters and waitresses, the cramped space, the feeling of tireless and unbearable visibility. all these people on divergent paths converging on this one space. order the eggs benedict. it's pretty good.
and you smile and try to be present as you're tempestuous inside, in fear of the unknowable unpleasant that is always coming, coming, but then you think: I've been this boy before, in this diner, except it was a weary Sunday then and I gritted my teeth trying to talk to my parents.
and now I am an adult, someone many would consider a man, and that same fear resides in me. the only thing that changes are our responses.
try the almond joy iced coffee; it's too sweet but that's kind of the point.
and then you smile and achieve presence and realize these are your friends, that your frayed neurons will probably give you glimpses of this far down the arc, when you're old, looking back, the vestiges of your memory trying to conjure something pleasant and anesthetic as you edge nearer, nearer.
these are the good old days.
it's cacophonous and stuffy and sweaty and altogether too many carbs but look around the fucking table and take it in, now, now.