Fox Hollow Lane Isnt Alright

One of my favorite songs + events of the past month have inspired a blog post. The song is "The Kids Aren't Alright" by the Offspring and the events of course is being bored sitting around in the middle of Mali with nothing to do but think. Anyway, the song is about the lead singer of the band going back to the place he grew up and seeing how much its changed and how crappy it is now. Recently one of my old neighbors passed away and it really made me think about the old neighborhood, good ole Fox Hollow Lane. When I was living there the world seemed to revolve around F.H.L. nothing else mattered and that was my whole world. There were about 8-10 families that shared our dead end and called our street home.That means there were about 15 of us kids that called FHL paradise.

When we were young our future was so bright
The old neighborhood was so alive
And every kid on the whole damn street
Was gonna make it big and not be beat

The future was ours for the taking, who wanted to be a doctor, a professional soccer player, an X-Men character, nothing could stand in our way. The tides of time were ours to control and the future was but a step away under our running steps. The old neighborhood was always alive with parties and activities, I remember distinctly playing in the street till 9pm during the summer waiting for the street lights to come on. Improv soccer games on my front lawn that were never very organized. Playing fantasy games that seemed to be saturated with the idea of child immortality. No one could take us down, we were like the coos rostra, the medallion, a family. My paradigm at that time was that this was what living was, and brother living was good….

Now our neighborhood's cracked and torn
The kids are grown up but their lives are worn
How can one little street
Swallow so many lives

Driving past the neighborhood now is like going into a DMZ. There is maybe one or two houses left that still resemble what photographs are left in my memory. People moved away, new people moved in, lives change, we all grew up, and what really sucks is that no one told us it was time to grow up. Just one day you wake up your 23 years old living in a 3rd world country, thinking you can make some sort of difference when really your just running from responsibility when you get a phone call that some kid who you knew for 5 years (barely) who actually did accomplish something has died. How can one little street swallow so many lives?

Jamie had a chance, well she really did
Instead she dropped out and had a couple of kids
Mark still lives at home cause he's got no job
He just plays guitar and smokes a lot of pot
Jay committed suicide
Brandon OD'd and died
What the hell is going on
The cruelest dream, reality

Now you look back and you find out what your dream was…..a dream, and that reality is a bitch and she bites. So it turns out my neighborhood was nothing of what I thought it was and here are some reasons why: One kid tried to kill his little brother, one used to molest his little sister, one parent used to molest kids, one kid got a girl pregnant way early, one girl came out after her mom ditched the family, and then you have the fat kid who all throughout childhood gets made fun of and picked on. Of you know he just moves away, makes something of himself and then the world finds it necessary to take him away….the cruelest dream really is reality. Fairytales only existed when you want them too and even then they take work.

Chances blown
Nothing's free
Longing for what used to be
Still it's hard
Hard to see
Fragile lives, shattered dreams

We look to hold onto memories, but we also want to alter memories to make them memories. Sometimes the memory we created is better than the memory we created. It is hard to see fragile lives and our shattered dreams. BUT we all have the strength within to take shattered dreams and put the pieces together to make new ones. Furthermore when we lose the strength within ourselves to do such we can always find ways. I look to God, I can do all this through him who gives me strength (Phil 4:13). Really this post isn't about anything more than a thought or to, maybe a mini eulogy for my old neighborhood. Viktor Frankel once said,

its not we expect of life, its what life expects of you

. I think he was on to something….think about it.