"Come on, it's fine. I am just parting it now." I replied, confident that my answer was enough to inspire her confidence as I'd been using my hand to sway my hair to the left for all of a few hours already.
"I know. Well, I will say this, once you get a haircut you will look very distinguished."
"uhh.....Thanks." I couldn't help but reply with my sails efficiently deflated. I thought I already looked distinguished, yet apparently, I need to look like I have my shit together to look distinguished yet I could've sworn I am easily distinguishable and a large part of that is because of my ridiculous hair but that's beside the point.
I have something of a fetish for puns. I am also planning on moving out of the state within the next month and a half or so. Given those two facts, there is nothing more appropriate I could think of than parting (as I am parting the state) my hair to the left (as I will soon have left). This pun seems to have been lost on most...well everyone.
I suppose that, were I to be honest with myself, which I try to do sparingly, I would also have to admit that the whole parting my hair thing is just a commitment that I have finally decided to cave to. Barbers always ask me when I'm getting my haircut, "so which way do you part your hair?" to which I respond, "I don't," and that's followed by a long silence and they just say out loud without allowing me to refute them, not that I would, "oh, you must comb it straight." As if the mere thought of not ever doing anything to your hair was just ridiculous.
Anyways, I realized recently that not committing to a part in my hair doesn't make me cool or outside the system, it just makes my hair really messy. The bigger point being that the barber's are correct, not parting your hair doesn't mean that you aren't parting your hair, you're just not participating in that decision. I feel like this metaphor has unfortunately extended to a great deal of my life and, for once, I am finally ready to change things. For that, my girlfriend Jennie deserves a great deal of credit, as only a woman can verify for you exactly how foolish your self-delusions have become like they're just walking talking versions of those mirrors in dressing rooms that make everyone look horrible and start a diet.
Today, while walking home from work a homeless man that was perched in an abandoned doorway to a storefront that's long been vacant remarked to me in passing, "you're exactly on time," which obviously startled me and I had to redouble for a moment to hear what he had to say. He continued, "you know how I can tell--you're gait." I realized after this comment that I had been swinging my arms with the carefree-ness of a school-boy free for the summer and walking with the speed of someone who knows all the answers to the test their anxiously about to begin. My future's very wide open and this change is presenting opportunities for me to pounce on that future like a sumo on a hot dog. Apparently, I am showing that optimism in my very gait.
My love for Boston will always draw me back here with an infinite irrational affinity like a hospital bedfellow feels for the man who’s shared his pain for months on end or a brother in arms who traded bullet-dodging duties in the trenches of a hell I hope I’ll never know. I have felt so much pain and done so much growth in New England, Boston in particular, that the scars I carry in the deep parts of my psyche, the scars that shape my mind like the hammered punctures to a grand sculpture, will always point my origins to here.
Now, I hope to carry those lessons with me to broaden my horizons in an effort to become a true cosmopolitan citizen of the entire country if not the entire world. The part in my hair is a symbol of my willingness to accept the idea that I am a part of the system of capitalism in this country no matter how much I may dislike it. I am a part of this society as much as I may be critical of it. To think that one could do nothing to work within this system is like standing at bat in a baseball game and choosing to never swing in protest of the faults in the game, but that just means you're guaranteed to strike out. If I must be a part of this fault-ridden, possibly innately evil, game then the least I can do is play it to the best of my ability, and fucking play it to win: perhaps in the hope that I'll get good enough at it that I can change it, or if nothing else, good enough at it that I can find a way not to have to play it any more.
Boston gave me the gift of that realization. Now, I have chosen to part ways for a more friction-free lifestyle in a climate that actually has four seasons rather than two seasons: winter and baseball season. Boston will always play an integral part in my memories and now I have the rest of my life to figure out what parts I have left.
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