Changes

Changes

I carried popsicles, green, red, blue, orange, and yellow. They weren’t frozen yet, but I figured I would have ample time to turn them into their complete state seeing how I was on my way to another new family. I remember pulling out of the driveway, the sound of my grandpa's old Cadillac creating enough pressure on the ground to shoot a couple of stray rocks towards the neighbors’ yards, the smell of leather and cigarettes tainted the air as I rolled my window down to enjoy the summer breeze. I wasn't sure how I felt at the time and maybe I still don't. To be honest, most of my childhood is a blur, but there is enough to piece certain events together to paint a picture. Now that I am much older and have had experiences of my own I can relate the feeling in my stomach as I left my grandparents’ towards my new adventure. How I felt walking up to my first day at a new job, butterflies seeming to be trapped in heavy steel cages as they fluttered around my stomach or when my children were born and I held their little finger in my hand the thoughts of the future whirling around in my head.

I never enjoyed living with my grandparents, but then again, I never really felt at home anywhere that I rested my head. There was always a feeling that the situation I was in was temporary, it didn't help that it most always was. I had a million thoughts the morning of my departure from the small city that I had resided for the past year, but none of them were of regret or sorrow for leaving but anxiety and fear for what lay ahead. As I remember it was a Sunday morning, this thought strikes me at the same time that I see a glimpse of a moment in which a lady dressed in a large pink pantsuit and a hat with a large bow on it was losing in a three- to- one battle with her children to keep their outfits clean as she dragged the youngest into the large building with stained glass windows and a sign that read, “Sunday Mass, join us for our annual dinner, the Lord shall feed, the Lord shall guide”. When I close my eyes I can see murmurs of encouragement coming from my grandmother's mouth but the lack of sound fails to keep me out of the dark as to what she could have possibly been saying to me, maybe it's for the best.

Twenty minutes or so passed by when the big, boat-like, Cadillac roared into the nearest parking lot and I glanced around at my new home or apartment. As I unbuckle and begin to pull on the heavy door handle, thousands of thoughts form into a bubble and perform a chaotic dance inside my brain. My world up to this point was a divided mess, with zero consistency and no sign of sanity shortly but I had no choice but to take a deep breath and step towards another experience. As I mentioned previously, my memory is spotty, to say the least when it comes to my childhood, as the puzzle pieces began to be misplaced I would try to forced memories into spots they don't belong, I have done this long enough to form some clarity as to the moment I knew I didn't fit in.

Your body has a language of its own, it can navigate you through obstacles unbeknownst to most and make you readily aware of scenarios that lack severely in the welcoming department. The first day I met my new, and permanent, the family was one of those moments when my stomach went into overdrive, performing a ballet of moves while creating seriously loud sounds of discomfort. The apartment was two floors, three if you include the basement, and the buzzer rang loud in my ears as my grandma leaned in to read and press the correct number to let us in. A waft of food and mothballs hit my nose as the door creaked open and we headed one floor up to Unit 126. I didn't know what to expect when the door opened, who would be on the other side, how they would react to seeing me if they had kids if I would have my room if I would even be allowed in. There wasn't a goblin behind door 126, frankly, I don't recall anything after knocking on that old brown door, the echoes from my knuckles bouncing off the small hallway walls, but when I imagine it, I picture a blank face. The face that I see when pondering over my past is blank, not in a sci-fi horror way, more so a face of a mannequin, something I can sink into my thoughts deep and push hard to reconfigure to a certain point of accuracy. The face may have been blank and the memories as faded as the stone-washed denim I wore at that time but I am alive today and that has to be for a reason.

As I sit here and write an open portal to my past discretions, troubles, and curiosities, I must explain that I am fully expecting to be sharing this experience with whoever is reading. As fresh as a newborn’s cry, as new to me as it is to the one who is willing to stick around and follow my trail of breadcrumbs. I am simply treating this writing as an outlet to my current state of mind, a projector with each roll of film developing as it spins around the wheel of my life.

Going back to my first memory of meeting my parents, those that would be permanently holding that title at least, I can only help but fast forward through clips of events that have managed to escape throughout the fog and land on my thought stream. Entering this residence, I was 5 years of age and barely forty pounds soaking wet. I was quiet and mostly kept to myself as far as I recall, but I could tell immediately that my much larger older cousin and my new “Dad” were not going to share similar traits. My cousin was what one would call a pest and my Uncle or Dad was not around, he spent the majority of his day and night working at a plastic factory about an hour out of town. My Aunt or Mom, was very protective and close to her, at that time, only child and for him, that meant plenty of opportunities to weigh risk and reward scenarios especially when it came to performing WWF moves from a fake turnbuckle on the side of our rickety couch.

The problem with conformity is all the habits that come with it, the first few months that I lived at the new home I was my normal self, shy and unaware, but as I enjoyed more dinners filled with laughs, farts, and nighttime wake up sessions, fully derived of my cousin trying his best Steve Austin moves on me. I began to develop a shell, not impenetrable but most certainly solid much more solid than the soft exterior that I had when I arrived. The reason that I then saw this as a problem was that that meant I wasn't easily able to push aside the knowledge of who I was, to fill any empty voids of my own with the chaos that now ensued in my every existence.

Enough time passed, five or six more years, and we were now living in a condo up the street from where I first met my new family. This was a pivotal moment as my recollections grew more visible, more real, and more important. There was a specific moment in time in which I recall my mindset shifting from my now thoroughly polished personality to something scarier, something more in tune with my aura, my being. The catalyst for this sudden epiphany was a single drug named heroin, although there were no heroes in this story. Similar to my persistent leaps from one life experience to the next, drugs were introduced to me at an early age and my need to fit in disappeared quicker than my recollections as to why I started this mission of acceptance in the first place. They say you can judge a man by the cleanliness and shine of his shoes. I would imagine this is a basic factor in the general observation of what goes into maintaining such finely polished kicks, the discipline to maintain them. The respect for money made one realize the importance of saving each penny and the courage to be proud of something so minute to many other individuals. My cousin hardly wore shoes.

The tables had turned in my life during those times, my desire to be one of the family members despite the cost had switched to an immediate need to escape, to run away, and to forever avoid what lived behind those four walls. The temptation was never an issue for me, seeing first hand how quickly addiction could transform someone's life was enough life knowledge to keep me on a straight edge but the direct result of drug use itself was something that I lived with daily.

I used to watch out the window as my cousin snored loudly next to me, his track-marked arms exposed as he hunched over into the closest falling spot from his inevitable comatose state and think about my future. I remember thinking the only future objective was merely to not be like him. The constant physical and mental abuse that he left me with was enough to make me hate my existence. The lack of attention from my new parents was the straw that was destined to break the camel's back at any second, but it didn't. I was not in control of the vehicle of my destiny. I was on autopilot making it through each day with an attitude of, “it could be worse”, and when it did get worse I made it out. I don't blame my parents, my cousin, or my mother who left me so easily to fend for myself at such a young age. As I run these memories through my head I am beginning to realize that we are all like my cousin in our way. I don't need to extend any more details into the day in the life of growing up with a drug addict and constantly needing to find a place to fit in to. The general principle of it all, is humans are weak. We live our lives to please others to please ourselves. As I grew further into my personality I began to challenge the concept of life itself and how one needs to live, I continued my growth in the same household, moving homes every few years but still among my family of the chaos of which I had adjusted to in many different ways.

Through continual trials and tribulations, I was able to overcome the complacency of most small towns and moved out. My attempts to breach the bubble were successful but my journey to success was far from over. One may argue that I am still on that path. Fitting into a mold that is created off of fear and judgment is never a healthy life habit to create, understanding how deep the status quo in our society goes is as difficult as counting the endpoints of a large intricate spider web. I find myself still pondering past decisions and future options, but overall, I am complacent with being true to myself and continuing to search for the missing pieces of my life, to not only clear up the endless fog of recollections but to find a way around the convoluted society with life in, and straight into the freedom that comes with self-reliance.