Prologue, Part 2.

I took a look around my neighborhood today. 

I never felt more at home than I did tonight.  The street was empty and a heavy snowfall blanketed . In the summer my cousins would play hide and seek here. The summer days were ours here in this little corner of  Jersey. We'd hold onto youth for dear life and never let go. 

This street was ours. 

This was our neighborhood. 

This was my family's neighborhood.

Across the  street from me lived my aunt and next to me was my other aunt . Two houses down lived my uncle and around the corner was my other uncle. Up the street would live my cousins. But next to me . On the other dude of my house lived my grandparents .

They were the lynchpin that held this neighborhood together the very thing that kept my family strong. I love them all dearly. 

But as time always seems to do, they passed on.  the street is a little quieter now. But this time of year is still lively. Christmas Eve is the night that is like a winter block party. Family members moving from house to house  and  back again. Party to party.  My grandfather taking the grand kids together and reading them 'twas the night before Christmas and then going off to midnight mass only to return to do it all over again. 

Yes... My family ruled this neighborhood.

I don't want to go. As the hour draws nearer I don't want to go. 

Not that I can't go, I have acknowledged that I must go in order to find my place in the world. 

But I don't want to leave this wonderful neighborhood. Anyone who knows the works of Joseph Campbell would call this my " refusal to the call ". This isn't so much a refusal as it is a reluctant a a fear of the call.  

But if I could stay I would. If I could have the career I want her I would stay in a heart beat. But there is nothing here for me. Not anymore. I have to go. Because my grandfather would want me to go. He'd want me to take that chance. To seize the opportunities placed before and become something more. 

And so I sit on the front step of my home looking out into a snowy night and I realize this is it. This is where I exit and enter into another scene. 

Life is after all very much one big play and act 1 has ended for me. And the second act has begun.

I will come back one day. When all is said and done I will return to this little corner of the world. I will buy my grandfathers old home and I will spend the rest of my life with my family. Watching my children play hide and seek, and reading 'twas the night before Christmas on Christmas Eve. 

But that's a third act story. For now let's get the second act started.