Lament was the final track on the Evita soundtrack. This song expressed the life I left behind in North Carolina. – “Remember I was very young then and a year was forever and a day So what use could fifty, sixty, seventy be? I saw the lights, and I was on my way.”
After living in DC for a year and a half, something happened to me that brought about a massive transformation. I could feel my life move from one stage to the next. It most definitely was one of the biggest reincarnations that I experienced in my life thus far.
In March of 1997, while walking home from a local pub, four guys strung out on crack, attempted to mug me. Luckily, I was able to fight them off. I went “country redneck” on their asses and started cursing and swinging every limb on my body like a madman. I threw one guy down on the pavement and started kicking him with my steel-toed boots. They took off running down the street with their hoods over their heads, while I ran inside my apartment to call the police. I was fortunate that the mugging took place right in front of my apartment building. If it had happened on a dark street and they had a knife or a gun, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here writing this story. That experience slowed me down quite a bit, and it was after that experience that I became much more street-wise and careful. The experience profoundly changed me.
A few weeks later I met Cyrus. Cyrus was originally from North Carolina and had moved to DC six years earlier. We met on a Saturday and really hit it off instantly. I’m not sure if it was the mugging or what, but Cyrus and I decided to move in together the very next week. Neither one of us had ever moved in with someone so quickly, but it felt right and so we went for it. It was at this point in time that I moved into the Southwest section of town. This section of town still had its drug dealers, but for the most part was very quiet, and not as busy as some of the other parts of town.
But the transformation that was brought on after meeting Cyrus wasn’t so much a change of location, but a change of heart. Meeting Joel renewed my faith and gave me back my self-worth. Meeting Cyrus would allow me to make a complete transition from my emotional, dark, “sad” past, into a future filled with light, hope, and spirituality.
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The choice was mine, and mine completely
I could have any prize that I desired
I could burn with the splendor of the brightest fire
Or else, or else I could choose time
Remember I was very young then
And a year was forever and a day
So what use could fifty, sixty, seventy be?
I saw the lights, and I was on my way
And how I lived, how they shone
But how soon the lights were gone
