We had an outlook beside a power substation. Technically it was a maintenance pulloff, but it was so rarely used they really didn’t care unless you caused problems.

Spent so many nights figuring shit out, leaned up against the hood of her old Cavalier. We would watch shift change at the concrete factory, trying to decide where our lives were headed. Swapped cigarettes over heartbreaks, worked through trauma watching the sunrise.

There’s so much of that point in my life I wish I could cut away, but getting done with a show for the night and heading up that old mountain road is one of the few memories I would choose to keep. Those times where it felt like we could actually do something, that we were going somewhere.

I lived for those moments back when I tried to be a guy, as dudes never talk about themselves in that way if in too large a group. It’s hard for guys to have the same sort of support networks as a result, something I don’t think will entirely change. Y’all just socialize differently, ribbing on and making fun of each other as a form endearment much more naturally. So long as you make sure to have people you can talk with honestly as well, it’s a pure thing to be able to relentlessly bully your homies most of the time.

That said, I wouldn’t choose to go back in a million years 😅