Caterwauling

I post a lot of personal photos and random memes.

I don’t even remember half the shit I share.

And I really don’t remember the shit I don’t share publicly.

But this … this was a kick in the tit.

My phone has started showing me random memories from the last however many years I’ve had an iPhone.

It doesn’t show, obviously, photos from before the whole digital era. And it doesn’t seem to favor the people I don’t talk about, let alone post about. Thanks, AI overlords!

Not the person I am referring to:

But then this meme came up and it brought a thousand years ago to the front of my mind.

I really have searched for someone in every face.

And I don’t think it’s that other people weren’t him. It’s just that I must have been allocated my one connection early in life.

I know I’ve written of this before. That life sent me in a different direction because I wouldn’t have been happy with that one.

But, you know.

You can’t see a meme 30 years later and be taken back to a moment in time in 0.3 seconds for it to have not shaped you in some way.

And the fact that I caught them viewing the meme was the craziest part of all.

“I think maybe it’s time I said goodnight
But I’m happy that I came
Just to see your eyes still have their flame
Their beauty and their pain
It feels like yesterday.”

There was a song I heard recently that was this story. Tom Odell, “Old Lovers.”

I should have written it myself.

Maybe I will write it myself rather than sitting in awe of everyone else doing it for me.

Or maybe, as ever, the thoughts will leave my head for a while. Until they come flooding back in about a year and a half or whatever schedule they seem to be on.

Found myself watching Meg Ryan and David Duchovny on Netflix in “What Happens After.”

It’s very “Conversations With Friends” meets “Scenes from a Marriage.” But in an airport.

I used to love Meg but her husband came out as a trumper so I feel A Way about that family.

They are both named “W. Davis” so that’s how they address each other. In the beginning she asks if he’s on a trip or a journey. Later on, he realizes she’s on a journey.

I mean, that’s the whole plot. But as ever, I got to thinking about my own situation.

I realize I planned a trip for every month this year.

None are cheap. And I just ordered a monument for my grandparents’ grave — at a cost that will make them haunt me — and it occurs to me, this ain’t no trip, when I go to see it.

That’s a journey.

I have this whole Pittsburgh odyssey planned. No date set though. I still would rather go back to Japan. But I have to do this.

K says if I deal with things I left behind in Pittsburgh, I can finally start to deal with the emotional and physical weight I cannot shed naturally.

This weekend’s trip, meanwhile, I hope turns into a journey. I am boarding a flight and hoping to see a completely different life for myself.

Something tells me it’s just a trip. And that I need to think bigger. But I do have a call with a realtor on the other side of it. We’re all interested to hear what I say.