In the spirit of this blog, and what it means to me, I have decided to do the re-write of this "old" essay in three parts. My early years, up through Middle School will be recapped here in part one. The second post will tackle High School, and the final part will be up to where I am at now, my senior year of college. I wouldn't expect the final part until this semester is over mid December. Part Two may be posted by either the end of the month or in early November before the launch of the Play Station 4. So, let's get this bitch started.
I began the original essay by diving into my self diagnosed depression, I've never been medically diagnosed as depressed. But from all my readings on depression, and the fact that I have tried to kill myself quite a few times when I was younger, I feel as though I can safely say I was depressed. Actually I don't think it's fair to say I was, depression isn't something you get over, it's more like something you learn to live with. I still hate getting out of bed most days, and the only way I'm able to do so most times is by writing, reading, or watching some sort of visual media. Classes also tend to motivate me to get out of bed, but on the weekends, it's one of the former three.
I grew up without my father really being in my life. I do plan on one day heading down to Florida to meet the family we left behind twenty years ago, but that's a story for another time. I'd like to say there was a definitive cause for the depression. I wish I could pin it on something, so that I know exactly why I hated myself, and still kind of do. There was not real, traumatic cause, I wasn't beaten or raped, I was however constantly made fun of.
I was never the cool kid, I never fit in with that crowd. I was short, overweight, and weak. Hell, I still am. So needless to say I took my studies more seriously than the average kid my age, even more than my close network of friends, which really, until about high school was four people, and even now it's somewhere around six.
I spent my pre-grade school years in a town called corning, with no real friends that I can remember. The only real thing I can remember was that I broke both my left wrist (for the first time) and my collar bone during my time there. That, and that I was attacked by some bees, that was fun. I broke my wrist when I was around five years old by falling off the top of a slide. And my collar bone was broken when some older kid ran into me while he was playing basketball, I blacked out after he hit me, and woke up either in the hospital or nurses office being taken care of. As you can probably guess, my bones weren't (and probably still aren't) very strong.
Somewhere along the line, before I started the first grade even, my mom met a guy who lived in a town called Clifton Springs, which is where I now currently reside when I'm not in Brockport for college. I don't recall for how many years we lived in the trailer park with him. I want to say it was three or four years, possibly even up through the fifth grade, but he was my first real father figure. He was your a typical male, or at least that's how I remembered him, he seems different now whenever I see him, but I remember him as a much more masculine man. But perhaps that was just my childhood naivete and the fact that I was not a very masculine boy and wasn't used to a man in my life whatsoever.
Eventually, stuff happened that I have no real recollection of, I want to say that he apparently didn't want the responsibility of taking care of a kid any more and we moved out. We moved into an apartment complex near the outskirts of the town and there we stayed until I went off to college. It was here at this apartment complex where I met the man who I consider to be the closest thing to a father figure I've ever had. He was one of our neighbors and one of the nicest persons (is that how you say it? God, how do I still not know how to speak English perfectly) I've ever met.
I love and respect him to death, and whether or not he reads this I want it to be said. I'm not the best with starting conversations with people, or keeping in touch with them, the way I was treated in school by my peers has made me a socially awkward mess, incapable of starting a serious conversation with anyone. I am quite capable of doing the small talk thing, with anyone, but if anything "real" needs to be discussed,
Anyway, he has been planning a move out of state with his daughter and his fiancé for quite some time now. I just want it to be said, in hopes that he will read this some day, that he's been like a father to me. And despite the fact that I haven't seen him in forever, something like two years now, I will miss the shit out of him. Maybe some day, I'll learn how to talk to people, I'll get his address and go visit him.
So back to the school stuff. Honestly, I don't recall the bullying every getting physical aside from a few times. There was never a black eye, busted lip, or bloody nose. But definitely people would assert their obvious physical dominance over me. In other words, it was more verbal bullying. It made me hate myself, the way I looked, how tall I was, how smart I was, practically everything about myself, and once you hate yourself, you never won't. The thing is, I know I'm over weight (slightly mind you, about 15 pounds), and I hate that, but I have no ambition, literally no ambition to do something about it. I'm not sure why exactly I don't have the ambition, I believe it stems from the idea that I just really don't care anymore. But anyways, back to my youth.
The depression, or whatever it was, if you don't want to take my word for it, led me to have a short temper, that I have since groomed into a slightly larger temper. But that short fuse I used to have caused me to break my hand on another kids face in what I recall to be the seventh grade. Now I realize that I've skipped breaking my wrist for the second time in the fourth grade and shattering my elbow between fifth and sixth grade. Yep, I fell on a cement block located in the playground behind the apartment complex. My elbow looked something like this, after just a few minutes, the funny thing is that one of my neighbors said to just put ice on it.
So, that's the scar there, on my elbow. And yes ladies, that's my room. That X there on my forearm is part of my "xXx" tattoo referring to my straightedge lifestyle. I have more tattoo's, but those will be discussed in the coming parts. Back to me breaking my hand on another kids face. Yeah, that happened.
He took my glasses off, and threw them across the cafeteria. So in a blind rage I punched him, a lot, a broke my hand. Hurting me a lot more than I hurt him. And that was basically the only "fight" I was in. Wait no, there was this other time where one of my friends hit me with his backpack, and then I knocked him down and knee'd him while he was down a few times. But to be fair, I asked the back-pack attack. I keep getting ahead of myself, that one was in high school.
Nothing more really happened in my middle school years, aside from getting my cat Smokey, and starting to fall out of a few strong friendships. A few of my friends got into drugs, nothing serious, just alcohol and marijuana. You know the drug that should be legal because it does less harm to your body than cigarettes, and certain strings of the plant can actually do more help than harm. That's neither here nor there, but it's funny when you think about it a straight edge pro the legalization of pot. Personally I still won't smoke it, but not only would it stimulate the economy, it'd make a lot of people more mellow and happy, or maybe a bit paranoid.
I still keep in touch with the majority of them, though one appears to have fallen off the face of the Earth. To back track once again so I can say where my love for movies came from. My mom used to work at a local video store in Clifton (actually it was in Phelps, which is right next to Clifton), and she would often take me to work with her. Now you know where the cinephile in me was born. She worked there until a few years into middle school if I remember correctly, after which the place went out of business and she took up a job at the Big M in Clifton, which is currently in the process of going out of business. Moral of the story, my mom runs places out of business.
That's about all I can tell you about those years. So here's a video to tie you over for a few days. Tomorrow night I'm watching Prisoners, because it is actually the midnight movie, I've already purchased my ticket, so there's no backing out now.
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