10:51 p.m. - 2009-06-19
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I never have been the kind of guy who liked taking pictures and neither was Richard (well, when we was younger he didn't).
He's only been dead for four years and I'm losing the image I have of him. I've always been the type of guy who has relied on memories to carry me through.
Don't get me wrong, I still have plenty. However, I would love to find the roll of film that my sister took of Richard, Anthony, Antoine, and myself.
I consider all of those men to be my brothers. Yet, I don't trust anyone with my feelings.
I don't really want to go into my childhood. But I guess to figure me out you would have to know something about it.
I was sick often (sometimes I was faking it) and was often alone for days at a time.
I played with action figures for hours, I gamed for hours, I read for hours, I would draw for hours, and it was all by my lonesome.
I come from a big family, it's seven of us; but I was still alone.
Also, I didn't have any father figure. So I imitated my heroes. Batman, Gambit, Spiderman, Ryu. etc.
What I felt that they had in common was the fact that they hid their feelings. They didn't want to bother anyone with how they felt.
I grew to considering that sharing my feelings was weak and that I had to deal with things alone.
Being sickly, quiet, and a bit odd made me an easy target. But I was also angry, so I fought. My heroes fought against injustices and so did I or what I assumed to be injustices.
So now, I was quiet, sickly, a bit odd, and angry.
I had tons of friends, I always had people I could rely on; but I didn't. I listened to their problems and gave them peace when i could.
But I felt like I betrayed them. I was never honest with how I felt and they just assumed I was fine.
Um...I forgot where I was going with this. Something about pictures.
Oh, I regret that I don't have any pictures of the good times I had with him. This was due to my idea of what a man was. Someone who wasn't sentimental, when in fact-I've always been.
Richard gave me a book on martial arts and I treasure that book. He used to sleep on my bed when he spent the night when was younger and I still have it. I still have the toys I played with in my younger years. I have four journals in my file cabinet that I filled up when I was younger. I still have an old tooth brush from when I was a little kid sitting in an old box alone with comics and cd's I haven't listened to since the ninety's.
I am a sentimentalist and for the life of me, I don't understand why I treasure all this stuff and yet never posed for a picture with him (except the missing one).
Memories are the best thing to have, but sometimes a visual reminder doesn't hurt any.
It's strange...
I hold on to everything because I'm afraid to let go. I'm afraid of forgetting, I'm so weak that it's pathetic.
