Not gonna lie. No lies here. No reason to lie when this is the epitomy of honesty, trying to document my own life. I believe, honestly and wholeheartedly, that I am an anachronism. I was born completely out of turn. If I had been born anywhere from a hundred years ago, or anywhere further back, I'd probably be significantly happier. Just hard larbor and myself to worry about. Back in the days when there were honorable men and women out to change the world rather than the age of information. I hate ignorance, but back then, it wasn't their fault. I wouldn't have the pressures of becoming something great and fighting thousands of others. Just my wits and my natural born intelligence would have made me as successful as my heart could possibly desired.
I remember my first skin fight, back in the second grade. Kids had picked on me for my entire life, asking me where my daddy was and why was I so short and why was my mother so overweight and didn't I have any brothers and sisters? Children are the cruelest humans of all. I remember being whitewashed and the butt of many jokes and pranks in class, and coming home with gum in my hair and refusing to cry because that's exactly what they wanted and it'd just make me weak. However, there was one time in the first grade, right near the end of winter, it had snowed one last time and two of the school bullies, bigger kids, the ones that developed faster than the rest of us, picked me up and started whitewashing me, saying, "Got no one to protect you now don't you? No teachers here!" My mother, seeing this happen from the parking lot where she was on her way into the school to help out with a class activity later that day, rushed over and picked both of them up by their collars and shook them good, shook them hard till their teeth chattered. Told them to never touch me again. She let them down and they ran off and she helped me up, my face raw and red and she wiped the snow away and carried me inside. I promised myself I'd never make anyone else ever fight my battles. The next year, when they heard my mom was sick with bronchitis and she was probably going to pass away from it, it was that severe, they came over and they pushed me against the ring of trees that's in the front play yard of Larsen Elementary, and one of them got in my face and told me I was going to be parentless and alone for the rest of my life and that no one would ever love me again. I put my smaller hands on his shoulders and I shoved as hard as I could. I guess he tripped over a rock and wasn't expecting me to fight back cause when I went to sit on his chest, the look on his face was total shock.
I used my fist to wipe it off his face.
His buddy took a while to pull me off, and they both crawled away with bloody noses and bruised egos. But me? My knuckles were cracked and bleeding from the chill and from the force I was hitting them and the fact that I'd never hit anything in my entire life. But I was exhilerated. I had had my first battle and I had won honorably.
Have you ever stopped to just watch the sunset? I love to do that. I love being outside. In this world of buildings and walls and structure I long desperately for the days when people built their own homes, zones and codes be damned. Those were the days when people understood the purpose of strength and the value of life and common sense.
My mum and my dad divorced when I was two and half. My mom took me from Chicago to Utah to live with her parents in... Orem? Provo? I honestly can't remember. I'm pretty sure it was Provo though. My grandfather and I were best friends. We used to watch wrestling together and every morning he'd make either waffles or pancakes for me, with eggs and sausage and bacon and anything else that my heart desired, and then he'd take me back into my room and help me make my bed. I had Beauty and the Beast bedsheets. Even as a kid my mom was trying to make me into something I wasn't. I remember when we first were moving all of the stuff from the car, my mom had bought me these little tiny Lego sets, couldn't have been more than 50 pieces a set, and I sat in the driveway and put them together while the adults moved everything around. Mom was so proud of me because I could put them together all by myself. She smiled at me with those huge glasses of her's, slightly tinted, and she kissed my forehead and I ignored her as I would continue to do for the rest of my life, and continued to do what I was doing.
I've never understood why I was always praised for things that to me, seemed like common sense and weren't difficult. When I ran the mile, those were the times I wanted praise. When I got in a fist fight and won, those were the times when I wanted praise. But for getting a good grade on a spelling quiz? Seemed useless and frivilous of her.
My dad was coming to pick me up from Oregon. I remember sitting on the grass in the front yard, my mom had already packed my little pink suitcase full of everything I would ever need, and I played with bubbles on the front yard. For hours. He had left late and hadn't thought to call I guess. Just as the sun was sinking and my heart was breaking his red car pulled around the bend and I feel bad, I feel stupid for making him feel like a hero for showing up late. My mother was always there for me, and I never got that excited when I saw her.
Truth be told, I did a lot of things I regret growing up when it comes to my mom. But the worst part is, I was aware of it every time I hurt her, and I did nothing about it. Didn't change my habits, didn't stop my behaviors.
I think I might be a sociopath.
Dad always had curly hair and a mustache. One of the eightie's ones. You know. Dad was always covered in bristles and callouses because my father knew what work was. My dad was a good man. He was a terrible father for me, but he was a good man. My dad remarried soon after they had been divorced to a woman my parents used to know a long time ago. She and her husband had recently divorced, and she had five now fatherless children trying to be raised by a distraught single mother. My dad was, in a way, their savior. And he was an amazing father for them, to them.
I'd rather have had it that way. I'd rather those kids have my father as a good father than me have him as a father. It's the whole idea that it's better to help thousands than it is to save one life. That isn't to say that it didn't mess me up, because it did. Not having a father in my life fucked me up beyond belief, especially when combined with the sexual abuse that I went through.
But I think I'm getting ahead of myself and if I tell you all of the interesting tidbits about myself at once, near the end of this, you'll get bored and never finish it and I promise you, the ending is going to be worth the wait. Because I still have yet to die. Keep that in mind.
zebra
