tangled

"All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now.
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives.
Don't know how it all got started,
I don't know what they're doin' with their lives.
But me, I'm still on the road
Headin' for another joint
We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view,
Tangled up in blue."
-Bob Dylan
Copyright ©1974 Ram's Horn Music

Suddenly, after 20 years of exile, a drunken, half-hearted web search finds 2 old friends...
The other hair-farmer from HS and the lead singer in my first band...
20 years+- ago, I was on the road...mostly.
Couch-surfing, VW Van living, wandering....
Ended up in Austin, Texas....And didn't really tell anyone...
I had lost connection.
And what I knew of the other's lives pointed to them being very different from my own.
Oat Willie's "Onward through the Fog" and Kesey's "Further" were ingrained in me....
So I didn't even try to go back....save once...

Made an appearance at my 10 reunion, but the former Jocks and Bowheads didn't remember me, and I wasn't on their list....so couldn't get in..
(!)
Clinched the deal for me....
I inadvertantly disappeared into the Texas Hill Country.
(All of the dates, chronologies and timelines are approximate, at best....I am Timeless.)
Had a few contacts, over the years...usually during an exceptionally inebriated phase...Proved my theory, that I alone still harbor the Wildness that defined us, back then...
'Normal" lives, all of them...
I can't say I haven't thought about at least attempting a "Normal" life....Just don't think it's in me.
I've strayed too far from the reservation,it seems....and can't be found.
Our experiences constitute who we are, and how we define the World.
My experiences have been singular, and far outside the norm...ergo...
Strange duckness.
I've had a wild and interesting life.
(only 2 regrets...not sticking to my guns on a Philosophy degree, and not seeing more of the world)