Feeling N0rM4L

I woke up.

That's what I like doing. I like to wake up. Sometimes I like to stay asleep too. My dreams can be so compelling, so captivating, so beautiful. Sometimes my life imitates my dreams and to wake up is a sheer joy. Sometimes, most times, my dream are better than life. And I hate to wake up. But today I Liked waking up. The dream was not one that I remembered well.

I am up and out early in the morning. I've run out of creamer for my coffee, so why not leave out early in the morning to get more? And why not do it without a jacket? Why not act like it's the summertime? So out a go, like a fool wearing nothing but a tee shirt and slacks and sandals, and freeze my ass off. Literally. I go through the Duane Reade and I surprise myself. I'm grabbing at coffee and milk and acting like a normal human being.

Normal.

Does this mean that I'm back in the real world? Am I having a glimpse of the world that was for me? Is this what life was like before I went homeless? I am in awe suddenly. I stop in the middle of the Duane Reade. This is not the first time I will get this revelation today. It is an eerie feeling, to be back in the real world. I can remember going to the Franciscan Friars for their watered down version of coffee, standing on a soup line for a sandwich and a cup of the bean and that was all the coffee that I would be having for the day. That would be it.

And now I'm shopping for coffee, as if I'm a normal human being? Will I ever be normal after tasting the other life? Will that life always mark me? I am not free of it yet, will I ever be? I have to wonder. I have to think about it. The truth is is that it is a portion of my life that will always be a part of me. I find it hard to leave my room I believe, because of having to live for years outside without someplace to go after dark. Staring out the window of a Starbucks, wishing that I had a home to go to when the night became deep. Now I do, and I hate to leave it, for anything in the world.

That's no doubt why I'm a shut in. I'll always fear the outside world. Always fear having to return to it. I look at my surroundings and I say to myself, how did I get here? How did I luck into this room? How did this happen? I have a chance to change things for myself. All I need is for things to work out.

I have been contacted thru Facebook by an old High School Brother. He found me and we queried each other to see if we were who we were....

"Are you Hobobob that went to San Francisco and then to Las Vegas in 1980 with at least 3 other guys?"

Yes, I was that guy. But who was he? Yes I am. Were you with us? Were you the fourth guy???

"Yes it was my friend. I remember that one of us did not have a driver's license yet and became the de facto "navigator" for the whole trip. We wont talk about what happened in Vegas - because what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas. Gosh, that you remember the guys on that trip is very impressive."

It was as if time melted as we caught up. We wrote back and forth, playing catch up, and he told me that he heard my radio show, and just now made the connection. Wow, I'm more famous than I care to think. He is a wonderful connection back to a life that I have long forgotten. I have long lost track of my life. It has been derailed for some four or five years, crashed and rolled over in a mountain of smoke and dust. I am fallen.

When did life get to be so hard to hold on to? When did I fuck up so badly that I ended up here? What star did I follow that led me to this place, and what star did I follow to lead me back out? How DID I get off the streets? It seemed as if things moved in the right direction for me. I did very little. All I did was survive day after day. Just survive and I slowly rose out from the morass of living on the streets.

And there it goes again. That feeling of being N0rM4L. As if I survived to enter back into the real world, where I can shop for food, and eat at a kitchen, and sit on the Internet all day and bitch and moan and write novels and look for a job. I'm feeling that I'm like YOU now. OR a close facsimile. I'm thinking that I feel good. I feel that I am in a dream.

I wonder if I fall asleep tonight, will my dream be better than this life? OR will this life be better than the dream? Will I like to wake up tomorrow? When things are in wack, does that mean that changes for the better will be made...in spite of me?

Will there be any change for the better?

Hobobob