My past, my present, my future. Part 3
Writing this all down is surreal because I feel disassociated from it. It’s akin to telling a story about a life that doesn’t exist anymore, but the memories of it are accurate. I wrestled with doing this for several years because I wasn’t sure I wanted to attempt to write it down, but here I am.
Grade school wasn’t all fights and bullying. My athletic ability and speed served me well but didn’t matter with making friends. I developed into an athlete and was an all-star in every sport I played. I was a soccer goalkeeper and was invited to try out for a traveling team after my first season in the net. On the basketball court, I was a defensive menace. When I was a baseball player, I was the starting first baseman.
I was that kid in glasses and hearing aids who was in the smart classes. I wasn’t the cool kid. I can’t remember a single guy friend I had in grade school, and that is sad when I think about it. Sure, I played with the neighborhood kids sometimes, but my best friend was a girl down the street.
My father was my baseball coach, and the only thing I remember him teaching me was throwing the ball behind my head because I was biting my lip while taking batting practice. I wish I remembered more, but the visual imagery of that day stands out like a beacon of light.
Despite my mom being tough and strict, she also showed me what I could achieve and shared a side of life my dad would have never shown me.
She took me on my first trip to NYC on December 4, 1982. I remember so much about that day. I recall the temperature and what I was wearing, and the most poignant memory was us climbing the stairs to the Statue of Liberty to her crown. As I looked out her crown to see the NYC skyline, I said to my mother, “wow, I am going to live here one day.”
It is a memory that is imprinted on me. I was eight years old when I went on this trip, and remembering it with such clarity proves how consequential it was for my future.
My mom took me to symphonies, plays, opera, and ballet, ensuring I wore the proper clothes. As hard as she was on me to excel, she walked the walk to show me how to do it.
I have a lot of respect for my mother, even if I feel she was too hard on me, which partially caused me to rebel in the ways I did. We have recently talked about my childhood, and the perspective I have from my years of maturity, education, and therapy has given me deeper insight as to why my childhood was the way it was.
My apathy started to grow in middle school. I was growing tired of the pressure, and I can sum it up in one statement from my Homeroom teacher. Report cards used to be handed out in class. We had to take them home, have our parents sign them, and return them to school. My HR teacher looked at mine, handed it to me, and said, “You got one B, wow, that is not like you.”
His name was Mr. Pitcherello. He is the only teacher I remember by name from my 8th Grade.
Even then, I felt shame and pressure for not meeting my expectations.
By middle school, I was starting to isolate myself. I had one real friend, and we had fun together, but that was the extent of my middle school social group. Acquaintances, yes, but not friends.
I felt like a loner more often than not, isolated from my peer group. If you ask me now why that is, I can’t give you an answer because I have no idea what the hell I did to deserve to feel that way.
I know that I wasn’t equipped for the pressure I felt from all sides. My brother was never particularly close with me, and even today, our relationship is strained. Years of feeling like I didn’t matter as a brother has left me feeling apathetic about forming a meaningful bond with him. I am trying, but it isn’t easy. I felt intense pressure from school to succeed because of my intelligence, and studying was something I never could do. Little did I know that much later in life, I would be officially diagnosed with ADHD, and looking back at my youth, it should have been pointed out at a much younger age. In the early 1980’s, this wasn’t a thing. More on this much later.
I feared making a mistake because my mom sometimes yelled at me for days over it. Yes, I would call it emotional abuse, and it’s something that I realize is from her traumatic upbringing; she has addressed it with me, but we can’t turn back time to change it.
My father only disciplined me physically; you may recall that from part 2 of this series.
I was angry and alone, more alone than any child should feel.
The only time I never felt alone was when my annual summer trip to Bear Creek Camp came. For 1–2 weeks each summer, I was the popular kid. I made friends, had a camp girlfriend, and was chosen first for sports teams. I excelled, and I dreaded going home.
I hate to belabor this point, but what the fuck was so wrong with me when my hometown peers looked at me like I didn’t belong. Is it any wonder I never want to return home for even a visit?
This young man was a powder keg, and I had no idea how bad it was.
I entered high school as a kid who wanted to be accepted, but that continued to be hard.
If you made it this far in the series, thank you. I realize some subjects will overlap and even repeat, but as I piece together the memories, they will be scattered and jump around some. I am doing this without editing it for content, so please don’t expect a crisp, chronologically perfect novel. In due time, I will gather all these memories, lessons, and events and organize them cleanly into something for publication.
Until then, enjoy the rough draft.
Before I move on to the high school years for good, if you are a parent reading this, I want you to take a few things and immediately apply them to your life today.
Talk to your children and listen to them.
Don’t just listen to their words because we know damn well kids lie and hide the truth. Listen to their actions.
Are they isolating?
Do they have a supportive peer group?
Are they involved in after-school activities that aren’t just gaming?
Do they seem angry or happy?
As a parent, this is your job, and it is easy to ignore warning signs of isolation, anger, disillusionment, and bad influences because you are grinding away trying to support a household. Magnify that if you are a single parent doing it alone.
It is easy to let the internet and screentime take over their lives because it keeps them occupied and out of your hair. It is also dangerous to allow a screen to have that much of an impact on a child’s development.
It is your job to be the leader of your children and to equip them for success later in life. You cannot blame schools when you are the one who brought them into this world, and they look to you for safety, shelter, food, and leadership.
Parents will make mistakes, as mine have, but errors can be caught, fixed, and changed. You will yell at your children, and you will get angry, but the most important thing a parent can do to fix the bouts of emotional outbursts is tell your child, “I am sorry I screamed at you; I will work on not doing it again and making you feel that way. How can I help you *insert behavior/action they need to change*”
I only got apologies from my mom in my 40s and never once from my father.
Please learn this lesson before you move forward today and when I publish the next part. Your kids’ lives are meaningful and a young mind is easily imprinted with negativity.
Did you ever stop to wonder why all the most vivid memories I have of my youth are of the traumatic experiences, the rage, the negativity?
It is no secret.
