Posted by m1s1n (206.163.168.12) on July 10, 2003 at 02:06:57:
In Reply to: Re: The Sign of the End? posted by Paul on December 03, 2002 at 21:13:38:
So I've been thinking a lot recently about Bend, Oregon versus Santa Cruz, California. Basically I feel that everyone has given Bend a bad rap based on the fact that it isn't some densly populated city filled with excess junk and crap for the world to see. It's kind of embarrasing returning home and awakening to the fact that the sky has a stained tint to it from all of the smog. It is also unfortunate that what I once felt gave Santa Cruz character and credibility has now become a shunning point--meaning areas like Downtown which are now one-half corporate city hell and one-half slums. Was it always this way and I was simply naive and blind to it? One of the things I have grown to love about Bend is how easy it is for me to get away from all of the city and suddenly become emersed in the surrounding mountains.
But more importantly than my surrounding environment I'd like to mention the emotional environment I've encountered in Bend. All of my childhood and most of my great memories involve Santa Cruz and because of this it is very hard for me not to talk about it all the time. This seems to frustrate people and ostracizes me to a certain degree from ever really being a true member of the community. However at the same time I feel more embraced here by the people I've met then I do from my Santa Cruz friends. I can't help feeling dejected and ousted from the group everytime I return from Santa Cruz. Every visit I find people are not how I left them and I have grown farther away from the person they remember. Keeping in contact with the occasional online chat hasn't been enough to keep most of the ties strong like they once were and now I feel more a part of another group then I do with my friends from back "home". I probably should have started this in a new thread because it has nothing to do with the original post--which I have no idea what it was even though I was the one who wrote it. Anyway--fuck it all. I guess I'm writing all of this because I feel so ignored by everyone I thought I was so close to for most of my life. I feel that no one has made a real attempt to be there for me and that my infrequent visits are the only things that maintain those bonds. No one wants to visit Bum-Fuck-Egypt even if it would mean seeing me. I'm probably just sulking right now, but that really hurts a lot.
-JDK