Last October I walked through the Irving convention center surrounded by people dressed as stormtroopers, little kids with homemade Captain America costumes, a few catwomen in risqué costumes and assorted characters from film, TV, and comic books. As I beheld the milling throngs taking pictures, buying memorabilia, and lining up for autographs I reflected on how comfortable I felt here. These were my kind of people.
These people had no hangups about getting out there and dressing strange. They simply wanted to be part of the moment and reveled in the chance to be with other like-minded individuals.
I always get this warm and comfortable feeling around these conventions. A feeling of belonging. I drove up to Dallas alone, I wasn’t meeting anyone, but yet I didn’t feel alone.
I’ve been doing these conventions (comics, games, anime, movies) for about 25 years and it never seems to change though I certainly have. From being a kid who could barely afford admission to one of those old guys who seriously considers buying some overpriced piece of memorabilia. Yet I never seem to tire of these conventions.
I saw all the old familiar characters. The kids running round wanting to see all the exhibits, the weekend dad trying to buy his kid’s approval by spending a fortune on junk. The 30 something guy wearing a cartoon t-shirt and cargo pants carrying around a roll with his home made art trying to find someone who would tell him it was good. The cosplayers trying to be their favorite superhero or villain fir a few hours and nonchalantly pretending that they didn’t like all the attention that they got. The dealers that traveled the convention circuit going from town to town with this moving carnival trying to just make enough to get to the next convention.
That evening I went out to a fancy restaurant by myself. I figured might as well since I was in town. As I sat in my booth waiting for an over priced steak and drinking fine red wine I saw a party of about a dozen youngsters come in. They were all in their mid twenties, maybe a couple of years out of college, and fresh in the job market. A wedding rehearsal dinner party.
I could tell by the way one couple clung closer together than the others. The boys all wore starched stiff shirts with ties and looked distinctly uncomfortable and the girl all wore nice dresses and giggled at the boys discomfort.
I speculated that these kids had just entered the process that led from college to marriage to a big house in the suburbs, to families, and full rich lives. Golf weekends, country clubs, fancy events, box seats at big sporting events, family events, the works. These kids had their lives figured out and mapped already.
I felt like a stranger peeking through a window at their lives. I did not belong here. I belonged in that over crowded convention center with the autograph lines, terrible convention hot dogs, and all those silly, silly dreams.
I reflected that if I had made a few key decisions differently in my life that I would have probably turned out like these privileged kids and would have been in a similar setting a decade and a half earlier. My life would have been mapped. Where had I deviated from the path? Why had things turned out so differently than how they “should have”? Why was I not sorry?
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