broadway is dark tonight…

broadway is dark tonight
a little bit weaker than you used to be

broadway is dark tonight…

see the young man sittin’ in the old man’s bar
waitin’ for his turn to die.

the goo goo dolls on the ipod.

watched some of the goo goo dolls live in buffalo video tonight.

it really got me thinking. about where i come from, about buffalo. about how i left, and about how often i (don’t) get back.

buffalo.

my memories of buffalo, or rather, my opinions of myself leaving buffalo, are mixed. i regularly bounce between guilt and survivorship; on one hand i see buffalo as a burned-out burb with no opportunities for me.

and on the other hand, i feel like an ingrate who abandoned my family to seek my ‘fortune’ elsewhere (which of course, i haven’t — and won’t — find). they stuck it out, and they seek their happiness there, and they take care of each other. they make do with what they have, and they’re happy.

ungrateful.

and i can’t be bothered to buy a plane ticket to visit. (and when i do, i feel guilty the entire time i’m there). why are these people not hating me? i abandoned them, for wanting something ‘more’ than they can have.

conflagration.

so i fight an inner battle, where i see myself using survival instinct to get out and finding someplace more hospitable to what i do and where i have more opportunities. then i chastize myself for not ‘sticking it out’ in the place where i belong.

i don’t deserve to be here and have what i have. i’m supposed to be working in a factory, or digging holes for a living, or something. and my payoff would be the ability to see my family every day. what’s more important?

contemplate.

was all this worth it? wasting years in college, wasting years working at internet startups and b.s. tech jobs? moving cross country to work for some mega corporation, who measures my value based upon how willing i am to open my veins like a spigot?

well…

this is where i am. this is what i have. i have my wife, and my cats, and my fish. and now — my house.

and i hope someday, i’ll be able to call this ‘my home’ and feel like i belong here, and i deserve this.

and then i want to go back to buffalo, and feel like i belong there, too. i won’t ever understand why my family doesn’t resent and reject me for leaving them.

i’m just really, really, really glad they don’t.