We've all been through changes, or seen things happen, where you realize, "Well, that part of my life is over". Graduating school, moving out on your own, getting married, having kids, etc... Milestones that, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I had an amazing group of friends in my mid 20s in San Diego. The partying, the drinking, the helping each other out, football games at my place on sundays. It was one of the happiest times of my life. Then I got medically discharged from the Navy, my friend Casey got deployed to Iraq and I haven't seen her since, two of the mainstays of our group got married and had a kid, one guy got way too into coke, one girl married a SEAL and he was killed overseas so that's the only thing she's been able to talk about for the last two years. Even if I were to move back to San D now, everything would be different. Jon Stewart announced he is leaving The Daily Show after 16 years. I remember watching the show in high school. I remember the switch from Kilborne to Stewart. That show has been the starting place of some amazing talents, and Stewart has been multiple generations most trusted "news" source for a long time. The show itself will continue with someone else at the helm, but I can't help but feel it just won't be the same. Focus: What were some of the milestones in your life, things that changed who you are and how you live forever? Alt-Focus: Post your favorite Daily show/John Stewart clips. I personally have always loved how he literally ruined the show "Crossfire". He destroyed them on air so badly that their show got cancelled. He also did a wonderful job ridiculing Glenn Beck.
I know the moment I realized that "home" wasn't "home" anymore. I was at the end of the divorce, and was faced with going back to 'home' and having...NOTHING. No job, no means of supporting my kids or myself, no way of keeping up or even prospects for HAVING those things... And I chose to be homeless instead. If I was homeless, I could keep my job, my car, keep my kids in school, and get back on my feet. My mom begged me to move home, 'start a business'*, and get out of the city. Fuck that shit. Add in that while all of that was happening, my entire family decided to lose their goddamn minds, and things were worse. Besides the traditional family angst of 'growing up', as I've moved on, I've realized I've outgrown significantly outgrown that place and those view points. Going back there is a bittersweet mix. One hand I'm like "Goddamn. The air and the sky are amazing." other hand "Fuck these backwards ass, redneck, uneducated, short sighted, GOP loving assholes". *My mom can't - to this day - understand that her little tiny hometown couldn't support what I needed it to do, and still brings it up.
A few weeks ago, I realized that after five and a half years, I will never see my ex again. Out of all of the ensuing depression and the pressure of restarting my life, comes this sense of quiet liberation. Its not joyful or exciting, but its the end of being haunted by a beautiful past.
There are a couple of times like these in my life that stick out. One is easy to explain, and one is not. The death of my father dramatically changed my life. There was the existential aspect, where I was truly confronted with my own mortality. I went through a period of a year or two where I felt as if nothing truly mattered, given the impermanence of our existence, either physical or in the memories of others. It was a struggle for me to pull out of that funk. In addition to losing a friend and a person I always counted on to be there for me, I knew my daughter would never know her grandfather (she was 5 months old when he died). I suddenly became responsible for my mother, who is difficult to deal with at the best of times. Dealing with her and worrying about her future have provided me with a constant, low-grade anxiety, a bitterness towards my sister, an aversion to ringing phones, and an unfocused resentment of elderly women who spend decades doing nothing (I'm talking post-kids leaving the house here) while their husbands bust their ass to provide, then outlive their meal tickets by decades. My life, and how I view it, took a left turn in Spring 2004. That one was easy to explain, with a definite cause and well-defined effects. This is not: Other than the obvious milestones like moving from one town to another, hitting puberty, etc. there is one day I can point to growing up where things seemed to change. One day, when I was 16, in the summer of 1983, I was enjoying a beautiful day lounging out in my folks' backyard. I dozed off a bit, and woke up a while later, and things seemed - different. I had sunglasses on, and when I took them off to try to figure out why I felt so weird, even the sunlight looked different, and not just because time had passed. The color of everything, the intensity of the sunlight, the way I perceived it, all seemed off somehow. And on top of that, my life, my perceptions, my younger more carefree outlook, just felt altered somehow. After a while – I don’t know, 20 minutes, and hour maybe – I sort of had this epiphany that things, and how I felt about them, were just going to be different from then on. I realize this makes no sense. I can tell you honestly I wasn’t on peyote, or tripping, or anything like that. Maybe puberty related hormones finally kicked in. Maybe I had been grappling with some things subconsciously that resolved themselves at that moment in time. I’m still not sure what happened, but I know something did, at that time, on that day, and it became a dividing line for how I thought about myself and my life.
I've had plenty of milestones that felt life-changing about 5 years ago. Jobs, marriages (yes, plural), moves and cutting my hair short. But the two most defining moments are the day my daughter was born, and the day I left her father and moved to Charlotte. I was 36 when she was born; I never thought I wanted kids until I got pregnant. After two miscarriages, my Mini-Me was born via emergency c-section and weighed less than 5lbs. The little shit didn't spend a second in NICU; despite her weight, she was bad ass right from birth, and is now a brilliant little 4-year old with a penchant for outsmarting me. I left her father after he proved repeatedly that he was a shitty father, and an overall shitty person. After he kept "forgetting" several of her feedings - instead having phone/e-sex with online slores - I told him we were going to NC for awhile. Didn't fight it, hasn't seen her since, and not a penny toward her well-being. And for the record, I've never denied visitation - or asked for child support. Becoming a mom was life-changing in general, but choosing to raise her on my own was something way beyond. Being responsible for everything in her life can be absolutely overwhelming, and my social life is dictated by the availability of grandparents or skipping a rare pedicure so I can get a sitter. I don't really drink anymore (hangovers are a bitch at 6am with a crying baby), we have legitimate savings accounts and I spend most of my income on preschool, dance, gymnastics, and, well, her. And I wouldn't change a thing. Except the pedicures. I could really use those more often.
My brother getting sick was a game changer. Watching him struggle before his diagnosis, the night he was diagnosed and his recovery sense have been really eye opening. Everyone stops being young at some point, and despite only being 25 that was the night I lost my youth. In the three years since I have aged quite a bit both physically and mentally. When my brother was getting sick, maybe not coincidentally, I developed nearly constant panic attacks. Between my fear for his well being and the absolute misery I was experiencing my life would never be the same. When he was sick I learned the power of family and the true nature of friends. It takes an extraordinary friend to stay around after the surgeries. People get bored and fade away. After the acute car is over people lose interest and find something else to occupy their time. If you don't have family, if you don't have someone to care for you to nurse you when you're not well, you really have nothing because even your most devoted friends will not take up the task. I also learned how much my identity and life is intertwined with his. I remember the night he was diagnosed I was by his bedside, elbows by his knees pleading to whoever or whatever "Without you I don't exist" Throughout the process I've decided health is random, I don't look for a reason for why he got sick. I accept it and move on. I accept the fact that marathon runners have heart attacks, and that cancer does what it does regardless of what a person may do to prevent it. I've had more fun, and in other ways significant milestones. However, no single night has ever coming close to impacting my life the way that one did. My life is split into different eras based on that night. Pre that night life was one way, after it was irrevocably different
Mine had to be when my father died. My father and I always had a somewhat tension filled relationship, but I'd hoped working with him on a project would help heal some of that. For the most part my father was never in my life, he was a phone call every now and then, a birthday card with a $20 bill, and a couple days visit every few years. I went to live with him and his wife for a month when I was 14 and that didn't go so well. They demanded that I call her "Mom." As soon as school was out, the very next day, he took me back over to my mom's and dropped me off. Then got a divorce. Because he'd been fucking around on his wife. He blamed me for the divorce. He also blamed me for his next divorce even though I was 21, 2000 miles away, and supporting myself. My dad was a control freak beyond anything I've ever seen and I don't take to anyone trying to control me, which is a recipe for disaster. I made the mistake of allowing him to loan me the money to buy a house when my ex and I broke up. I'd already bought another place, but I let him talk me into walking away from my mortgage and buying a 4 bedroom house. A block from his. Bad idea. He thought since he loaned me the money he was allowed to go into my house when I was at work and change everything he didn't like. When my sister and her husband had their 3rd kid, my father decided for them that was enough kids and made my brother in law get his nuts cut. He literally neutered the poor fucker. In Mississippi, while I was preparing my property to put my house up we argued for 3 days about which direction my house would face. Bear in mind, this was MY property and MY house, both that I paid for. I was 42 year old at the time. He had bought the property across the way and set up a house for my sister and told me I had to set up my house facing hers. "That way you can look out your window and see her house!" That was his argument. My argument was simpler "Go fuck yourself." So yeah, when dad died everything changed. Because I found out things got worse. He had spent my entire life bad mouthing me to anyone that would listen. The worst part was he wasn't bad mouthing the things I'd done or my poor decisions (Of which there were plenty.) No, these were outright lies. Stories that only happened in his head. While I was taking care of my aunt, I heard constantly from family members that only knew me from dad talking about me that I was absolutely nothing like they thought I was. All they had previously known about me was what my father had told them. That is a complete mind fuck to be hit with while you are grieving the loss of a parent: To grasp the cold, hard truth that while you were trying to repair the relationship, they were busy torpedoing your relationship with just about everyone. For whatever reason. I still don't know what purpose it served. Everything changed that night he passed. The broken relationship could never be repaired and I started learning how irreversibly broken it was. Y'all kind of had a front row seat as I went from responsible human being to complete fuck up as the whole world as I knew it collapsed around me. Much of it was my fault, and I know that. Instead of dealing with the issues that arose, I chose to ignore them, numb myself and watch everything I had worked for slip away. That's all on me. As most of you know, I took a few more devastating hits while I was lost in my own personal self medicating fog. I can't even pin point the moment the switch flicked and I came out of it. But I did learn something that I wish my father had. You can somewhat control what happens to you, and only you. No matter how much you try to manipulate the situation, you can't control anyone else. They're going to do what they're going to do. His efforts of trying to control myself, my sister, his wife, and my brother in law have devastated the family.