Crash

I didn't understand the big deal when America was raving over Bull Durham back in '88. I was a boy after all. The only kiss on my record had been from my very first girlfriend, Kenisha Love, in the second grade. My only knowledge of what an erection was existed only in relation to the discomfort that came with wearing jeans over my tighty whitees whenever I had one. I wouldn't become a Susan Sarandon fan for another decade. And Kevin Costner was a mosquito I could never manage to shoo away from the TV screen (I would come to like him in flicks like No Way Out, The Untouchables and much later The Upside of Anger). Back then I only knew Tim Robbins from being in Howard The Duck, a movie which I must shamefully admit that I kinda liked.

When I finally did see Bull Durham for the first time in full it was the 21st century. I easily recognized its comedic genius, as it in many ways was representative of many of my own romantic struggles so to speak. The smart girl (who happens to be equally sexy) falls victim to the classic flaw of her own short-sightedness, and chooses the wrong man. In the case of this film we're able to laugh about it. No one dies. No one ends up miserable. It's the subtlety in the writing that makes it all the more brilliant.

Stumbling across it tonight reminded me of the multiple triangles I've found myself involved in over my thirty-something years. I chose to view it in terms of winning and losing when it was more about which road your decided to take home. Some are cluttered with traffic. Some are all green lights. And on some you collide with things. The collisions, if emotionally intense enough, can derail you completely, and result on emotional paralysis. I thank the Lord that I can still walk after some of the worst of them.

I always tried to prove how worthy I was. But what I know now is that my worthiness was never the issue. I am a road that travels through light and darkness, through numbing fear and eletromagnetic attraction. But when you measure me in the long, the positive always outweighs the negative. A lot of people can't say that.

I've forgiven all of those who fucked me over during the years before I slipped into darkness. One the other side of it now, so much barely matters anymore. I was always firm on what I wanted. I never regretted the choices I made. In a world where acting before thinking is second nature, it takes the rare individual to truly see what is and what isn't. It takes an even more rare soul to double back and try to right wrongs on a second pass. Personally, I'm not sure that such souls exist in the world where I live. And when I say world I don't just mean New York, or Brooklyn. I mean this time of mental and emotional cholera so many of us are living in.

That doesn't mean that I don't still believe in the fairy tale. But while some would watch Bull Durham as their inspiration for finding their prince and princess charming, what I'm reminded of is that in real life such struggles begin and end in the span of a few moments. And it's the more surface situation which usually comes out still. That's not as much of an overall judgment of humanity as it is a truth about what I've witnessed.

We often end up resenting our significant others for the very red flags that we saw from day one. I know I was guilty of it for a long time. Now that I've slowed my roll I can truly see the kind of damage it's done.

As I build a new city on top of a fallen Rome's ashes, the flaws in my old blueprints are painfully obvious. My AIM therapist would say that this is progress, and I most likely would agree. I still believe though. And I still know how to feel. And that keeps me far ahead of so many others in the game of love. Out.