As she stared down the barrel of a sawed off shotgun she had the euphony that her life needed to change or she was going to end up dead in a gutter or spending 25 years to life a federal prison.
That was 7 years ago but it seems like a completely different life. It was a completely different life, a completely different person. It is also one of my clearest memories. I am well adapted to blocking out most of those years, most of the time.
There was the shotgun in my face, the man whose name I can’t remember standing next to me, and the fact that I had to climb over a roof to get to the door. I remember his face, him sitting in my art room - tweaking out on some project, but his name escapes me. If I saw him today I wouldn’t recognize him. One of two things happens to the people I know from that time – they end up looking like the walking dead, eyes hollowed out, pick marks all over there face, ratty and unkempt; or they clean up and pack on some weight. The only ones I recognize these days are the ones I knew before we all ended up as addicts.
I remember the moment that I died, figuratively speeking, and was given a new life to start over with, but that is another story for another day. Although it was an entirely different life, I remember far more clearly then I would like to. I need to remember the day I had a gun pointed at my face with crystal clarity because that was the day I made the choice to save myself. No one will ever save you from yourself that is a choice that can only be made by an individual. After you make that choice there will always be help available if you ask for it. I’ve never been one to ask for help though.
Everyday I am in contact with wonderful people who never screwed up their lives like I did. I shouldn’t have either. I come from a middle class family where I was loved, I didn’t get everything that I wanted but who really does, my parents cared where I was and who my friends were but they were never over barring about it. I got my first car at 14 and got to drive all by myself to school. I lived in a good neighbourhood, was allowed pets, and have no complaints about my childhood. It’s the exact same story of so many of the students in college but for some reason my path took a detour through a darkened part of the woods.
There will always be closed-minded people who will judge me because of my past and I have judged myself with those same thoughts. I have spent years wondering how I was so lucky to get a chance to start over. Part of it was my ability to fallow the “fake it till you make it” theory and I was really good at it. Somewhere between then and now I really did make it and it had nothing to do with luck.
Your thoughts about what’s going on in the here-and-now and what will happen are formed while looking through the lenses of your past. It has taken years for me to break the haze of those old lenses and accept that what I have accomplished had nothing to do with luck. Your past experiences make you what you are today. That past has made me a strong person who works hard and fights for my goals and what I believe in. I may not be ready to embrace my past but I have finally accepted that I shouldn’t be ashamed of it. It shows how strong of a person I am and how hard I work to make my life better and more amazing everyday.
I was on a path that would have lead to 25 years in prison and I turned my life around. I have had the opportunity to be an RA, join a sorority, be the ad staff manager, get involved in campus, I volunteer on a regular basis, I have swam at the Great Barrier Reef, cuddled a koala, hand fed a kangaroo then ate one for dinner, I have been to the Van Gough museum and visited an old soviet block country, Paris, the Vatican, Pompeii, Athens, and have seen so many marvelous things. I got to do all of that because I made the choice to change my life. To bad it had to be a bad situation during a part of my life I wish I could erase. Without knowing the bad I wouldn’t work so hard to make my life extraordinary. It happens to be true that you can’t have the beauty without all the bad stuff, too. Ying and Yang.
This also proves that people can change. I won’t even listen to an argument against this because I did it. I changed.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
review
http://www.popmatters.com/tv/reviews/c/charmed.shtml
I enjoyed this review because it opened with something that was really going on behind the scene. It covers what the philosophy behind WB shows. Hot skimpy dressed girls and beefcakes with their shirts off. It compares it to other show in the genera and doesn't make it out to be the best but it does say that it is enjoyable for the good v evil genera.
Then it gets not so good as the review drags on about the characters and plot.
I enjoyed this review because it opened with something that was really going on behind the scene. It covers what the philosophy behind WB shows. Hot skimpy dressed girls and beefcakes with their shirts off. It compares it to other show in the genera and doesn't make it out to be the best but it does say that it is enjoyable for the good v evil genera.
Then it gets not so good as the review drags on about the characters and plot.
Ramifications of a Blog
What is the reach of ramifications of a blog. If I'm writing about something that happened 7 years ago will that have an effect on a future job? I'm writing about how people change and making a better person out of the mistakes of the past.
My problem being that I want to post it and if I was an established writer, or an established anything, I would print it. But I'm not and I'm not sure what type of content could hurt my future job prospects.
It is a really tough call when you want to print something but are afraid of your past coming back to bite you in the ass. Again.
My problem being that I want to post it and if I was an established writer, or an established anything, I would print it. But I'm not and I'm not sure what type of content could hurt my future job prospects.
It is a really tough call when you want to print something but are afraid of your past coming back to bite you in the ass. Again.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Throw away age
The age of the throw away culture. My lease on my car was up so what did I do, I leased a new car. Damn it is a nice car. Push button start, sunroof, Bluetooth for my phone, Bose speakers, plays MP3’s, quite inside and out. Graduating, new guy, new car, new city, new hair cut, does this give way to a new life?
This is not the first time I have up and relocated, leaving everything behind. I believe in reinventing myself everyday, break up the monotony. When you spend 16+ hours a day with yourself it can get relatively boring if you don’t mix it up. Those who don’t get board with themselves are too simple or drama addicts.
It has now been five years in the same town, with the same people, the same job, the same old shit day in and day out. I don’t understand how people do this for 20 years at a time. Going to the same job, living in the same house, raising kids, dropping them off at school everyday for 12 years.
My best friend Betzy is completely opposite of me when it comes to starting over. I will keep her in my life no matter where I go or who I become but how I ended up friends with that woman is beyond me. Betzy’s number one goal in life was to become a mother. I learned about this when her daughter was 3 years old and was floored by this revelation. I would never. She got her associates degree in something or another and would have worked at the same dead end job at an insurance claims place if they hadn’t laid her off. Now she is over worked and underpaid in the insurance department of the local hospital. She will never leave this job.
She bought a house, which means she will never leave the town, and is slowly fixing it up. Betzy is rooted down and happy as a clam. This leads to some crazy conversations when I call her and ask for advice. She is good with advice, will tell me how she sees it, and I know she is right even when I don’t want to hear it. But she put down roots and my bohemian/gypsy blood cause me to spread my wings and fly away. Betzy keeps me grounded and that’s why I love her, even if we don’t see eye to eye on issues of life.
Others have stated that they wish they could have my gypsy nature but they don’t know the sacrifice that it takes. Being able to move to a new town and start a new life is amazing but finding another whose wings fly the same path is virtually impossible. The probability of finding that person who I can fall asleep with every night and still get to kiss them good morning is boarding on nonexistent. Betzy promises me it will happen when I settle down. But I can’t settle down and the crushing weight that truth is loneliness.
This ability to throw it all away and live the gypsy life comes from the deep seeded need to not end up like my parents. They were from the age of collecting, from a time where you didn’t waste anything. I refuse to collect junk that I don’t use. This includes people, places, and things. Remember that if you don’t use it, throw it away. Embrace the throw away age!
So off to San Francisco to my new school, new apartment, new roommate, with my new car, new hair, to start a whole new life. And I get to do it all by myself.The choices I make will determine where my path leads but when I jump into my car and start driving westward that path will be as foggy as a San Francisco morning.
This is not the first time I have up and relocated, leaving everything behind. I believe in reinventing myself everyday, break up the monotony. When you spend 16+ hours a day with yourself it can get relatively boring if you don’t mix it up. Those who don’t get board with themselves are too simple or drama addicts.
It has now been five years in the same town, with the same people, the same job, the same old shit day in and day out. I don’t understand how people do this for 20 years at a time. Going to the same job, living in the same house, raising kids, dropping them off at school everyday for 12 years.
My best friend Betzy is completely opposite of me when it comes to starting over. I will keep her in my life no matter where I go or who I become but how I ended up friends with that woman is beyond me. Betzy’s number one goal in life was to become a mother. I learned about this when her daughter was 3 years old and was floored by this revelation. I would never. She got her associates degree in something or another and would have worked at the same dead end job at an insurance claims place if they hadn’t laid her off. Now she is over worked and underpaid in the insurance department of the local hospital. She will never leave this job.
She bought a house, which means she will never leave the town, and is slowly fixing it up. Betzy is rooted down and happy as a clam. This leads to some crazy conversations when I call her and ask for advice. She is good with advice, will tell me how she sees it, and I know she is right even when I don’t want to hear it. But she put down roots and my bohemian/gypsy blood cause me to spread my wings and fly away. Betzy keeps me grounded and that’s why I love her, even if we don’t see eye to eye on issues of life.
Others have stated that they wish they could have my gypsy nature but they don’t know the sacrifice that it takes. Being able to move to a new town and start a new life is amazing but finding another whose wings fly the same path is virtually impossible. The probability of finding that person who I can fall asleep with every night and still get to kiss them good morning is boarding on nonexistent. Betzy promises me it will happen when I settle down. But I can’t settle down and the crushing weight that truth is loneliness.
This ability to throw it all away and live the gypsy life comes from the deep seeded need to not end up like my parents. They were from the age of collecting, from a time where you didn’t waste anything. I refuse to collect junk that I don’t use. This includes people, places, and things. Remember that if you don’t use it, throw it away. Embrace the throw away age!
So off to San Francisco to my new school, new apartment, new roommate, with my new car, new hair, to start a whole new life. And I get to do it all by myself.The choices I make will determine where my path leads but when I jump into my car and start driving westward that path will be as foggy as a San Francisco morning.
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