I don't know why but I feel the need to tell my story. This isn't for rates, pity or recognition. I just feel like telling a story of a man and what made him what he is today. If you wanna read it. Feel free.
I was born in Jacksonville, Fl. in the 70's. We lived in what is considered one of the poorest neighborhoods now. My mom was a Hippie and all I really remember about that time was being left to wander around at random parties that she would go to. I know I was younger than 5 but this was my first introduction to drugs. My dad I barely knew. I did know hey was a biker and a painter. Honestly my only real memory of him was him telling me that all men take cold showers. Stupid as it sounds. He died in a Motorcycle accident when I was three. After that I guess it was hard for Mom because I remember boyfriend after abusive boyfriend. I still shudder when I think about that night we spent in the emergency room after a one cruel bastard broke her arm.
At this time in the early Eighties I found some of my true loves that I still have today. Music and Skateboarding. My mom was finally finding a love of her own too. Drugs. I guess i've kinda blocked out the time between 5-10 because thats what my mom got for drugs or theft or whatever made me not see her for so long. All I remember is having to live with my Grandmother and how I hated her. She always put down my mom, but I loved her even if she wasn't there. When she finally got out she got a nice little one bedroom apartment for us down by the beach and me I turned into a little beach skate rat.
This is when my mom met Ron. He's been the only Dad I've ever know but for some reason I still just call him Ron. Ron was just 18 and fresh out of Boot Camp for the Navy when he met my Mom. He was a Eighties Hesher. I thought he was the coolest person I had ever met. He would introduce me to new music and even ocasionally take me out skating. That would eventually all change.
When I was about Eleven he got transfered to California and we decided to go with him. My Mom and him also decided to marry. Now if i wasn't already a little hoodlum punk skate rat. California was gonna change all that and it did.
As soon as we got there I feel in love. We lived by the beach again and it was the best. I spent all the time I could devoted to skateboarding and listening to music. Were we lived in Oceanside, Ca. was the mecca of skateboarding and music at the time. I found myself listening to everything from D.I., Suicidal Tendecies, And Black Flag. We were also right down the street from alot of famous skate companies. Just going out and skating around with so many people that I saw from the magazines was an awesome experience. I was also learning to grow up fast on the same streets I skated.
By the time I was 15 I didn't care about anything but skating and going to punk shows. This is when a lot of my music taste to what is today considered Screamo or Scene Music. We always just called it Hardcore. Also this is when I first started to drink and do drugs. This is a path I wish I had never taken. I started to push away from my parents at the same time. By this time my Dad was a career Military man and my Mom was a bored house wife with a penchant for persrciption drugs. We had moved up from poor white trash to middle class but were hardly the white picket fence family. I started to travel a lot. My first time away from home was to Washington state.
Washington was sorta a mecca for me. I mean Kurt Cobain was from there and most of my favorite bands at the time came from there. I had met a band at a show in San Diego and they welcomed me to come stay with them in Washington. This is where all my political views were set in place for years to come. the house I lived in was a melting pot of various punks and neer do wells. I met alot of so called political punks and alot of kids that seemed to want to do alot to change the system but spent more time getting wasted and thinking of the next party. This was perfect for me. I spent most of my time getting wasted and trying to find new drugs to fuck up my head and make me forget I lived in an oppresive capitalist regime. Until I met Scott. He was the real deal. he lived by the land, rode his bike everywhere and genuinely seemed to want to change the world. He was the one the really set my views on politics and Government. My best time with him was trying to sneak into Canada. Yes when your a dirty punk and walking across the border with no money you have to sneak in. It didn't work out as well as planned, but hey on the way back I did get to hop my first freight train. That was probably the most thrilling thing i've ever done in my life. We did end up getting into Canada later and had a week long blast. Me and Scott eventually grew apart because I became more concerned with drugs and drinking than being political. Then it finally happened. All my drugs finally caught up to me and I overdosed. Three words rang clear in my head that night "Great another overdose" spoken by some young punk that lived at the house. I knew it was time to tuck my tail between my legs and go home.
My ideallic dream of my mecca had been shattered.
Living back at home after being away and seeing so much wasn't a picnic. I was constantly being a menace and causing havoc at home. I was off drugs but I was still drinking. Once I even came to blows with Ron. I knew it was time to move on again in search of the next place I felt accepted, because I knew for sure it wasn't at home. I decided the best place to go was Los Angeles. The city of angels. I made it as far as Orange County but hey I was close. I spent the next 6 months living on the streets of the O.C. It was just like it was in washington. Drinking, Drugs, Skating and going to shows, but now I was spending less time skating. I really don't know what I turned into at this time but I know now I didn't like it. I would do anything for drugs. I was spiraling out of control in a punk scene where no one seemed to care. I took the only job that would hire a dirty street kid. The Carnival. That's right I was a methed out Carnie. I traveled with them to the wonderful world of Las Vegas. It was probably the most interesting job I ever had. I ran one of the water gun game booth's. I guess this was my first retail job really. It was good for about to weeks till the drugs caught up to me, and I was accused by another junkie of stealing a grand from her. Where these really the kind of people I wanted to be around? So me and another guy hit the road trying to hitchhike back to California. Back to what we knew as home. It took us four days to get back and I nearly died from heat exhaustion. I guess hitchhiking through the desert in the middle of summer was a bad idea. But hey I survived and we made it back home. I met a girl when I got back and she helped me recover and get off drugs. She was the first person to really make me feel worthy of something better in my life. I even took her to her prom. I had missed mine was it almost felt like it was mine too. Even if I was 20 by now. Like everything else it didn't last. Spending so much time sleeping outdoors I got a nasty infection and like before I tucked my tail and ran home to where I knew I didn't have to live so rough. Only know my parents didn't live in Wonderful California anymore. My Dad had been stationed in the backwoods of Maryland. Sigh
I lived the next few years trying to be the good son in Maryland. I managed to get my first real job that lasted more than a few months. I was trying to stay away from drugs so I didn't have many friends. This is when I discovered the wonderful world of the internet and yahoo chat. I spent every waking moment I wasn't at work or the bar on the net. I eventually met a girl from Vermont that I thought was the love of my life. After months of talking she decided to come visit me and ending up staying for two months. I was for sure that I had met my soul mate. The love of my life. My everything. So I sold everything I had. My car, My music, My computer. Basically my life. Just so we could move back to Vermont and live and happy bliss forever. That lasted about two weeks. Apparently all that being back in Vermont reminded her of her ex to much. So much that she couldn't be with me. I even reminded her what I had done to be there with her but alas the magic had gone. I thought about tucking my tail once again and running back home, but no. Not this time. I was determined to make it on my own. I wasn't about to admit defeat again.
Luckily she wasn't the only one I met online. There was also Pat and Dave. They had just gotten a new place together in Virgina and had plenty of room for me. By now I was a bitter jaded ex junkie punk. Finding a new job would be easy. I did but hey I'm a Leo. I like to sound dramatic. The next year was the best time of my life. We were making music and having the best of time. I was even in my first band that actually played a show. UTTER CRAP. No really that was the name of the band. We were actually pretty good. The times we had at that house I'll never forget. Everything from directing late night traffic in the nude to the half naked techno dance parties we'd throw on a whim. It was all just magical. Like all good things it had to come to an end. I moved away from that house and yes once again it was for a girl. NEXT. Yeah it didn't work out, but I did meet a new friend. Her name was Desi. I was never gonna date again so I ignored the fact that she worshipped me and we became best friends and did everything together. She really opened my mind up to the Feminist culture in ways that still stick with me today. I miss her alot. There's probably not a day that goes by that I don't think of her. My job was going great and they decided they wanted me to run a store in New York. Ohhhh The Big Apple. I was so excited.
I moved to New York and became even more addicted to the net. Mostly because I was all alone and didn't know a soul there. Ironically for all the searching online for like minds in my area, I ended up meeting someone in my own mall. Amanda reminded me of Desi alot. We ended up spending alot of time together and getting really really stoned a whole lot. After a while she moved in with me. We would go to the city almost every week and she would show me all the nooks and crannies of the city. I loved New York. I miss New York. Once again the person I had grew attached to had become someone I realized didn't share my ambitions with. Honestly I wanted kids and she didn't and this is what broke us apart. So when my job layed me off. I did the only thing I had known I ran back home.
It was 2002 by now and I was 26 going on 27. Living back at home I felt like a failure and I could tell I wasn't wanted. At least by Ron. My Mom was always overprotective. She probably would have let me stay there till I was 50. That wasn't going to be the case though. Six months after moving home I got the worst call of my life. I was at the bar with a friend when my grandmother called. She said " your mom just passed away." I dropped the phone and fell to my knees and started crying. Everyone that I had just lost it and I really did. My friend drove me home and I had to rush in to hope it was some kind of twisted joke. She was gone. All I could keep playing through my head was how she didn't want me to go to the bar that night. How selfish I was and how I left yelling and angry. All the thoughts of me rebelling and pushing away from her for all those years rushed through my brain. I would have given my life for hers. I screamed in my head "Why Why, How's gonna take care of me now? Who's gonna be there when no one else is?" Then i felt selfish again. The next two months I never left the house. I spent all day drinking and playing video games. I didn't care about the world anymore. I just wanted to die right along side her. I felt I had nothing anymore. I consoled in my friends on the web. The only ones I really talked to and they helped me grieve and move on.
About 4 months after all of this I had a new job and was working my butt off trying to move on with my life. Ron was ready to move on too. He had met someone new and I thought "how after 15 years can you move on so fast?" but I understood he had to grieve his own way. The hardest part came when he told me he was moving and there wasn't room for me. I felt hurt and betrayed. I felt it was a slap in the face but I moved on. I found a couch of a friends to sleep on and lived my life like I always had. Trying to make it work out one day at a time. I eventually went back to my ways on the net and met someone new. A girl from California. We seemed to have everything in common and be the perfect match. So I made a decsion I hadn't made in a while. Follow my heart for love. Once again i sold everything I had grown dear to. I said to myself "Hey they're only possesions" and I loaded up my car and started driving across the U.S. to be with this dream girl.
After a long and tiring five day trip I finally made it. I had made it to Los Angeles finally. I met her and her daughter and once again my life was in bliss. I had someone to take care of me again. I felt I had everything. Someone who loved me, someone I could love, and a real family finally. We both wanted kids so we started right away. Eventually she was pregnant with my son. I was the happiest man alive. While she was pregnant we started fighting alot. I figured it was normal because she was hormonal but even after he was born it never changed. I was never good enough and I could do no right for her. Our constant bickering caused her to kick me out multiple times. Not caring where I had to go but somehow we stayed together. We even moved to Texas together thinking that would change things. We we're married less than a year before I decided I couldn't do it anymore. I was tired of feeling unloved by the person i slept next to. So I said "We need sometime apart" and she through me out for the last time. She even told me that she never loved me ever. That really stuck a knife in my chest. I almost wished I had never met her but then I thought of my son and how wonderful he is and as much as she may never have loved me. He will. Unconditionally through the bad times and good and I thought to myself "Even if he's 50 and needs a place to stay, i'll always take him in."
My divorce really took a toll on me and crushed me as did my mom dying. I don't really think it compared to the tragety of my mom dying but I felt alone and worthless again. I felt this time like I was just a loser in live and not worth anyones time. I ended up in a house here in Texas and spent my day's drinking again and hating the world. Wondering why the world was such a miserable place. Then she came into my life. I felt something new. Something I didn't feel before. Her presence seemed to slay the demon's I was fighting with. She made me feel like a stronger person just from hearing the stories of her life. It's weird when i'm with her I feel happy, scared, loved, content, and stronger all at the same time. I've learned that yr experiences don't make you who you are but what you learn from them and how you apply them. This isn't the end. Only the begining of a new chapter.
