hometown heroes?

Conspiracy Brother and I were talking the other day about how a lot of the people we grew up with are now either dead, in jail, an addict, or just generally screwed up. Its really a sad situation, but unfortunately true.

The interesting thing is, CB and I grew up in completely different environments and times. He, on the east coast, in the ghettos of Philly and Baltimore in the 60s and 70s, me, on an island in the Pacific Ocean, in a middle class suburb in the 70s and 80s.

There's only a few of us that made it out.

Certainly leaving there changed my path but I realize that I now feel like a stranger when I'm back. There are a couple of people that I still call when I'm visiting and its usually enough to get updated..."Yeah, so and so is a single mom trying to kick a meth habit and still stripping, and so and so is an alcoholic, taking steroids". I am interested in hearing about these people but it does not make me feel any better about my own life.

I wonder what would have happened to me had I chosen to stay. Would I have been just as f-ed up? Would I be trolling strip bars and heroin hangouts?

Just the other day, I swear I saw this girl I knew from back home on the cover of some porn video. I lost contact with her years ago but knew she was stipping in San Francisco at the time. The girl carried a lot of baggage when I met her... the molesting stepfather and her virginity taken by a date raping college student. She had a thing for me but I always politely declined her advances as I just didn't think of her as a possible mate. We corresponded for a while; she'd send me distrubing poetry and photos and I'd write back. I even spent a thanksgiving with her in SF one year. On that trip I remember her telling me she thought I needed some "really good sex" to help relax me. On another occasion she recounted for me the first time she got up on stage to strip and had to take a couple of quaaludes beforehand in order to get through it.

I do feel at odds with myself when I think about everyone. On the one hand I'm very grateful with the life choices I've made but do feel some obligation to helping others pull themselves out of the dark. CB did have a point when he said that we just have to live our lives the way they've been laid out by the universe and don't worry about all the other things.