Luckiest guy around
Posted on November 4, 2007 in the Ranting category
For most accounts, I was not a fan of childhood. My earliest memory, I was about 2, was walking into our bathroom (painted in putrid 70’s yellow) to find my mom and sister crying over the body of our dead dog. Of course at the time I did not realize it was dead but it’s still a crappy memory.
One of my favorite memories was when I was 5ish. The house we were living in had a ton of flies around - my dad showed me how to catch them and then feed them to the banana spider that lived outside our front door. I only found out a couple of years ago that my memory was playing tricks on me - it wasn’t my dad that I remembered, just some guy we were sharing a duplex with. It’s no longer one of my favorite memories.
Then my parents got divorced when I was about 3 I think. Yeah, “whaaa, whaaa” half of America has divorced parents, I know. But stick with me. It was fairly ugly, induced by excessive drugs, alcohol, and philandering. So I bounced back and forth for several years between parents and grandparents in a highly unstable environment. Drugs and alcohol were still an issue for several years - I actually remember watching my parents take whatever pills, smoke whatever pot, and snort whatever powder they could find. My mom took me away from my dad in an effort to provide stability only to move in with her alcoholic, cocaine addict brother. When that didn’t work, my mom tried clinging to any guy that would put up with us kids - so it was great getting used to a new guy every few months.
She finally “settled down” and married some guy that ended up moving us 1300 miles from the rest of our family. This, too, ended up in divorce and we found ourselves on our own again. My mom struggled to make the best of it for us and did an OK job for a while, things basically smoothed out by the last couple years of high school.
Keep in mind this is a broad overview - obviously things have been left out and your mind tends to remember things in a certain way. I am just saying that this is how things happed as I remember them. Recently I realized one insanely important thing about my growing up. No matter how much my parents sucked at raising us and teaching us the tools we needed to succeed in school and beyond, everyone that had a hand in raising me always told me that I can do absolutely anything I wanted with my life. They weren’t just giving me permission, they affirmed that I am capable of doing anything I wanted. I realize that many going through a similar situation would end up doomed to repeat their parent’s mistakes if this affirmation was missing. Without belief in yourself, it would be impossible to better your place in life. It wouldn’t matter how many skills you learned or were taught if you didn’t have the belief that you could use them to your benefit. No matter how many crappy things that have happened in the past, I know that I am better than that and I have the drive to make my own future and for that I am thankful.
Thanks Colleen.
Comments
Leave a Comment
