teen angst poetry.

Clink goes the bottle, into the recycling bin.
Clink, as it falls in amongst its friends.
Clink as he downs another beer, and another, and another.
Clink, clink, clink.

"burning out his fuse up there alone"

Just a few days ago, on June 2nd to be exact, my Uncle Russ was taken off of life support and left this world to be in a better place. Last Monday he suffered from an aortic aneurysm which caused a stroke and led to his death. He was in the hospital for a few days but complications from both of those events just put too much pressure on his brain and his body couldn't handle it. Words cannot begin to describe how much he will be missed and what a terrible loss this is for my family, because he was the most incredible man. I've learned more about him in the past week than I had ever really known, and it makes me sad to know how many people are going to miss out on knowing him.

He was a really hard-working person, even when he was a kid. Once he set his mind to something, he wouldn't give up on it until he got it done. He was always really proud of his work and loved to be productive.

He was a really funny person, always laughing and trying to make others laugh too. Literally every picture that I've seen of him in the past week shows him with a huge grin on his face. He was always smiling and laughing and that's exactly how I'm going to remember him. He was incredibly kind, and always first in line to help other people out. My mom and his brothers have both said this week that he would give you the shirt off his back even if he couldn't afford to do so. Whenever anyone in our family was in need of a helping hand, he was always the first person there. He was insanely generous.

He was a wonderful father. He had three daughters whom he would have done anything in the world for, and basically did. He and his youngest daughter were very close, as he was with a lot of people. One of his friends from work spoke at his funeral today and said something about Russ having more best friends than anyone he knew, and that most of them were in his family. He was constantly giving and never asked for anything in return. He lived to make other people happy.

Next month my family is going to scatter his ashes near Lake Havasu in Arizona because his favorite place to be was out on the water in his boat with the people he loved most. I miss him so much already. I've even been considering memorial tattoo ideas, though I don't know when I'll have the money to get one. We'll see.

"maybe that's all family really is..."

I've been wanting to write a blog about the concept of "home" for a while now, but a lot has gone on in the last ten days or so and I've gotten sidetracked. I'm really not even running on full steam or whatever right now either, but I want to write. I need to write. That's just the mood I'm in I suppose.

Two years ago, just after graduating high school, I moved with my parents into my grandmother's house. We'd inherited it after her death in 2007 and had been deciding between renting it out or moving in ourselves, and eventually my parents chose the latter. So we packed all our things and moved out of the house I'd done most of my growing up in. I had lived in three houses total at that point, but the most significant parts of my life before moving had occurred while I lived there. Looking back, I feel like it was my first "home."

Since then, for the last two years, we've lived in Moreno Valley. It's taken almost that long for me to make any friends that actually live out here, and I still often drive back to Orange County to see old friends and to stay at Ashley's whenever she's in town. Driving back to Orange County, specifically back to Tustin, has always felt like driving home. Or at least, it has until very recently.

There's a particular exit that has always felt familiar to me; it's the exit I always took on my way back home from Ashley's house when I still lived in Tustin. I haven't had to use it much in the last two years, obviously, but I was with her last week and we happened to drive that way and for the first time, it didn't feel familiar. It didn't feel like I was driving home anymore. It felt like any other exit on any freeway in any town. Any ownership I had previously felt, any familiarity, was gone. It was the strangest feeling, but it made me realize that Tustin is no longer home to me. It also made me realize that I'm really not sure where home is anymore.

The movie Garden State has a scene in which the two main characters discuss the concept of home and I feel that their conversation is particularly relevant to what I am trying to describe. Zach Braff's character, Andrew Largeman, has returned home to New Jersey for his mother's funeral, but he doesn't feel at home in the house he grew up in anymore. Sam, Natalie Portman's character, claims to still feel at home in her house and Andrew says,

"You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is, a group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

I've always loved that scene and that last line, and I think in a way it describes exactly what I've been feeling. I haven't yet begun to feel specifically "at home" in Moreno Valley, even after two years of living here. I know this is my house, this is where I live, and this is where my family is, but I don't really feel like this is home. I also know that I no longer feel like Tustin is home either. Right now, I'm not sure where home is, but I do know where my family is. And maybe that's what family is for me.