Nobody cares...

In 1995, I made my way to my brother's wedding in Indiana. At this time, I was quite the pothead. I believe this was the last time I shaved my goatee for public approval. I kept the hair short and removed the facial hair and tried to remain fairly well kempt in an effort to not look like a typical pothead.

It was a difficult wedding. I had just returned home from Seattle and was slacking. Big time. I may have been cleaning carpets at the time. Quite the fall from grace in the eyes of the fam, having been professionally successful prior to my walkabout. I was now living in a warehouse in downtown Youngstown, dating a woman of a different race and basically reaking havoc among the traditional values of my family. In essence, I was still in rebellion mode though I knew not from what at that time.

Many of the details are fuzzy (drugs do have consequences...). I believe I drove up with one of my best friends from high school but can't remember why she was in Ohio as she lived in Chicago. Gotta get some details on that from her. I know she was at the wedding and I know I drove her from Indiana back to her home in Chicago and drove all the way back to Ohio in a whirlwind the same night in order to be at work the next morning. But that came later...

At the wedding, I ended up pretending to be ok. I wanted desperately to be with the woman I was dating but felt intense pressure to not be with her. In the end, it was my insecurities that created the negativity toward our relationship. It was not necessarily prejudice on the part of my family; they hardly knew her. No, the problem was my insecurity and need for acceptance and approval, that freedom I sought still lacking.

So I faked it the whole weekend and ended up smoking pot every chance I could. I pretended to have fun and to all those who say me it appeared as if I was having fun. Maybe I was but deep down inside I was a mess. One night at the hotel, it was late and a few of us were sitting around talking and I was rambling on about something and my friend looked at me and said: "Nobody cares."

It could've hurt; I could've been offended. But the sad truth is that she was right.

To this day, the phrase 'nobody cares' has become something of a joke capturing the essence of just how fleeting are the thoughts and cares to which we cling. It isn't that we are not cared about, as such, but that those things with which we preoccupy ourselves simply are not that important.

It was one of the funniest thing I had ever heard and to this day it is still funny when we talk about it.