MY STORY TO TELL

INCREDIBLY AWKWARD YOUTH

My youth was incredible and incredibly awkward and I honestly do not know how else to describe it. It is the time period I grew into who I am now. How I refuse to let myself lose no matter how old I get!

Since roughly the fourth grade, I was a changed child. My relationship with my mother was nonexistent. My memories of arguments with my mother and father were plentiful. My older sister was always struggling with grades and with social awkwardness. Lindsay was such a struggle; she could not communicate verbally in a manner that she could express herself. She had to be told what to do. Life for me was completely different and as a child, I was ignored and forgotten. I was left to deal with everything on my own, that was since I was considered the gifted child. Which the sound of that is great and all, but as a child it was an unfair burden placed upon me. I did not accept the responsibility that was placed on me at the time. I am not sure why I responded the way I did, but I can only assume I was angry with my mother. I felt as though she betrayed me and for the second time in my life, I was done. The problem for her was that I was older and able to act out. After getting in more and more trouble at school, I remember my mother bribing me to go to a shrink in exchange for a box of new baseball cards. I will never, ever forget the results of the “tests” that they ran on me. They went over them with my parents and finally sat me down and I could tell my adoptive mother had been crying. They proceeded to tell me that I loved my adoptive father more than life itself basically and that I had a disdain, or a hate for my mother. Yet know one knew why.

Fuck I knew why. Problem is I was unable to put it into words. I could never do right by my mother. The older I got, my grades suffered, my attitude was a fuck it, I will do what I want attitude. Looking back now, I have mixed emotions about how I responded to things. I have never once worried over the actions of my youth; I have done a lot of things I am not proud of. I do not worry about them at all. In fact, there truly is not much at all I worry about. I have never been one to worry about things, or to compare myself to others or to try and keep up with the Jones’. My mother did that enough for both of us. My mother’s favorite saying to me as a child was, “I’ve failed as a parent”. I will never be able to accurately describe what that did to me as a child. Believe it or not, I was a good kid compared to other kids I knew. I was not into drugs, I was not out robbing anyone, I was mostly polite and very respectful to my elders, just as I was raised. It did not matter though. I remember a time I had a friend over, a man who I consider a very good friend to this day, a man who holds a PHD and is a hospital administrator. When we were 17 years old, my mom threw him out of the house because we were down stairs in our finished basement watching TV and he was laughing hysterically and my mother just assumed he was on drugs. Another time, this time is probably my fault, who knows. I was always a jokester and I still am to this day. Anyway, one day my older sister came home from school and my father had this Colgate toothpaste that was in powder form. Well I joked with my older sister like she caught me doing coke when she came home from school. Well let me tell you how it went down. She immediately told my mother, my mother stripped searched me, tore my room up, found the bag of “coke”, then proceeded to beat me half to death. Only for me to finally convince her it was a joke and that “coke” was Colgate toothpaste powder. After this, my mother took me out of public schools and made me go to a private “Christian” school. Fuck me. All because of a joke. For the record, I have never done cocaine, PERIOD.

See a lot of my frustration came with the fact that my mother would tell my father bull shit. Straight up lies at times, well half-truths. See my father was a Firefighter and he and his brother owned a commercial construction company, so he worked himself to death and most days he was not home. Since my mother and I never got along during my teen years, she would always call my father and tell him of events and the events never truly happened the way she described. Yet my father would always take her side and beat my ass. I can remember going to soccer or basketball practice with belt marks on my leg. Numerous times I was introduced to a switch, a belt, a back hand, it did not matter. It was not until later that my father learned the truth when he happened to witness something happen between my mother and I and then my mother told him in a way that was not accurate and he called her out on it. They often fought during this time. Some of the fights were bad. They would fight over my father’s desire to go visit his mother, my father’s desire to defend his kids, my father’s business dealings, it didn’t matter. My mother was not a happy camper and my father suffered from manic depression. One thing I think is important to know is that my mother’s father was an abusive alcoholic who I may have met one time in my life. He passed away when I was very young and though I remember his funeral, I do not remember him. I never knew either one of my grandfathers growing up. That always haunted me. Anyway, my mother was never close with her father or her brother. I grew up watching the mothers of my guy friends doting all over them, they could never do any wrong even when they were in the wrong. I always wanted that, I never had it. I had the exact opposite. I had a mother that I could do no right by. I guess in time I have come to believe that it is because my mother never had a relationship with a male outside of my father. I don’t know, I just try to make excuses for her. That was always something I craved as a young man. I never experienced a mother who just loved and doted on her son. I am not saying my mother did not love me, but to the day she died, I never felt doted on and I never received a hug from her that spread love. It was always half hugs with one arm, very awkward and really painful to remember as I write this. It was almost as though she never felt love. I am not sure. As a father, I hug my kids as tight as I can. I will always.

Let me not paint my mother in a light that suggest that I did not love her. I did, I do and I always will. Her life’s complications became my life’s habitual, problematic tendencies that still seem to haunt me at times. I can remember as a child spending most of our summers down in Panama City Beach, Florida. We would spend what seemed like the entire summer there during the summers. My father would come down on weekends and visit. He was not a beach person at all and he was always working. My Granny who was my mother’s mom would always be with us and my Aunt Carol who was my mother’s sister would often times be with us. I loved my Aunt Carol, unfortunately she passed away from a massive stroke in 2008. One thing I learned in life, every close family member to me, died at a young age. Heartbreaking. I do have positive memories of my child hood and I was blessed, I get that, but due to my own childhood issues with being abandoned and put up for adoption, I did have my own issues.

See my mother would always compare me to others, other kids, other cousins, it didn’t matter who. I was like ok mom, so you would me to be like Dave, who makes good grades, but is a total alcoholic and a druggie?? Is that really what you want from your son? I loved to drink in high school, still do, but I was never a raging alcoholic, I have never been a drug seeking professional. Just not who I am. Yet my mother would ask me why I couldn’t be more like these other kids who actually had issues. Thing was, my mother didn’t know the issues they had, I did. Didn’t matter. My mom would say why can’t you be more like your cousins. Well as I got older, I realized those cousins she was referring to were ignorant, aids infested, lying, selfish, hypocritical pieces of shit. Thank God I was not like them. I mean that with every ounce of truth in my soul. They were not and are not good people, yet they claim to be the most highly religious Christians out there. One thing my father taught me is that if you are a true Christian, you do not need to proclaim it, your actions will do that for you. The Christians that scream the loudest about their faith, I have learned to stay far, far away from them. Anyway, the point is, if my mother had her way, I would have made straight A’s and been a model citizen on the outside and a complete fuck up behind closed doors. Maybe I have always been a fuck up anyway, maybe so. What I do know, I have honestly always strived to do what would make my mother and father proud. Even as an adult I have called my mother and told her of some accomplishments I had achieved and she would question it, downgrade the significance and just genuinely never be happy for me. It is a horrible trait for a person to have, negativity. I believe this was the cause of more arguments between my mother and my father than just about anything.

My mother was ALWAYS negative about everything. My father made a good life for us, we truly never worried about money and my mother never had to work. She had maids, got her hair fixed every single week, drove brand new Cadillacs, Lexus’ you name it, had a beautiful house, yet she would still bitch at my father. I remember one time; my father bought a burned-out house from the insurance company for $1000. My mother was furious! It led to a huge argument. My father laid the hammer down and let her know that it was his money, he made the money and he would do what he damn well wanted to with his money. Keep in mind, my parents had money, so it wasn’t like they struggled and my mother was keeping an alcoholic from spending their last $20 on booze. Nothing like that at all. Anyway, Dad spent the $1000, then spent $5000 on fixing up the house and then sold it for like $45,000. He did that type of stuff all the time. He never let me mother forget who made the money. My father always did stuff for my mom’s ungrateful family. The only one who was grateful was my Aunt Carol. She and my father seemed to have a good relationship; she was the complete opposite of my mother. She was the most positive, happy person and she never once met a stranger. She didn’t have the easiest life either. She had her own reasons to be negative, but she always and I mean always saw the good in life. I miss her so much.

In keeping in line with my childhood, my mother took me out of public school and put me into a private Christian school. I learned then about politics, hypocrites and basic fucking assholes. I started at the school in 8th grade. It was a real small school, seemed like everyone who attended was very wealthy, very well polished. I definitely was not polished. I was the bull in the china shop so to speak. I have never been one to mince words, even at a young age. I was always one who went after what ever he wanted and I was not afraid to work for it. I was also one to call bullshit on things that did not pass the smell test so to speak. These character traits or defects have never left me. I believe them to be good traits because I never take no for an answer. I always believe there is a way to get what I want.

For example, I guess I was in 8th grade or so, my older sister came home with one or two boxes of chocolate bars she was selling for $1. Well I took what money I had saved and bought every one of her chocolate bars. She was so happy. I was too. I immediately left the house; I went door to door selling every single one of those chocolate bars for $2 apiece and within 1 hour I had doubled my money. I was even more happy now, my older sister, she was pissed. Why? I never understood why she gave an actual fuck what I did with those chocolate bars. She sold everyone of hers to me and didn’t have to put forth any effort. Just the type of person she is. She has always been a lying, manipulative, selfish, envious, jealous fuck. I think it is fair to say we have never had a good relationship. It is what it is. See I have never had patience for bullshit or selfish people. She is probably the most selfish person I have ever met in my life. We will get to her and her shenanigans later in the book.

I remember one time my mother had my older sister take me to the Dr to get a physical done for sports. I thought it was weird she didn’t take me, but at that point nothing really surprised me with my mother. Soon I found out why she asked my older sister take me. We were in the room and everything was done and then a nurse walked in, she said that my mother tried to get them to test my urine sample for drugs, but because I was 16, I had to agree for them to test it. They simply couldn’t test it without my consent. Ha! Fuck you. If my mom had just asked me to take a drug test, I would have taken it 100 times. The fact that she tried to sneak that shit past me, pissed me off. It pissed me off because I wasn’t doing drugs and no matter what I said or did, she would never believe that. Instead of being honest with me and just asking me to take one, she tried to do that shit behind my back. So, I said fuck no and walked out. I was so pissed and as you may be able to tell, I am still pissed to this day about that shit. I felt like I was blindsided and my older sister was a part of that shit too. Fuck them both.

Looking back; I can understand why my mother or anyone for that matter would question if I was on drugs. I work as a full-time paid firefighter and my crew questions my drug use all the time. Hahahaha. Makes me laugh. Look I have no filter, no fear and my mind truly works in mysterious ways. It has been that way all my life and so there is no doubt that she should have questioned it; just wish she had been upfront with me. I always wanted a relationship with my mother that I could be honest with and a relationship that she would actually listen to me and hear what I was saying. She was always so defensive and negative, that would never happen. Even still, I can definitely understand why she would question me.

I remember one time, after my father caught me and my friend Robert sneaking out, he sat me down and said, “Mark, you’re running around with the wrong crowd.”, as I sat there straight faced I simply responded, “Dad, I am the wrong crowd, my friends are running around with me”. It was true and my father knew it. I was not a bad kid at all, but I simply had no fear. Especially by the time I was 17, shit man, watch out!! Testosterone became my best friend. Amazing how that was always my drug of choice. It wasn’t anything you could buy, but it was something I could definitely enhance with my actions and my lack of fear only contributed to that. Any one that truly knew me back in my high school days, after puberty, knew that I was crazy. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do. I am not saying that as a good thing, it just is a fact. That was always my personality trait, being the outspoken, crazy motherfucker that would always cross the line and push the envelope further than it was ever intended to be pushed. I was known to have 9 lives, like a cat, which if really fucked up because I hate cats. As my father before me hated cats, I hate them with a passion. Sorry for all my cat lovers out there. Thing is, I am highly allergic to them. I can go into a cat home; I can hug someone outside of their home and know immediately if they have a cat. I end up looking like Rocky at the end of Rocky 1 after being around a cat. My eyes just start to swell up. Anyway, didn’t mean to get off topic about pussy cats, not the type of pussy that usually gets me off topic!

Well now that we are talking about females and not cats, my bad boy, fuck it attitude along with my lack of fear, made me perfect for picking up the ladies. I can honestly say I have never understood a man that was too shy to go talk to an attractive lady. I have never known such fear. I was always able to talk to the ladies and I always loved the ladies. Doesn’t mean I was always stable with the ladies. While I was young, I realized I had a deep-seated fear that every woman in my life was going to leave me. Maybe I didn’t really realize it at that time, but it was definitely there. I was not a very insecure person, or I was very good at hiding it. Truth be told, when it came to ladies and relationships, I did everything I could to hold the cards. I never wanted to be in a situation with a woman that would make me vulnerable. I didn’t understand why when I was young that I was this way. It definitely made me out to be the crazy guy at times and I don’t mean in a good, fun way. However, I was definitely a romantic, I would buy cards, send flowers, write poems and it was amazing how quickly I could fall in love. I could also fall out of love just as quickly. If you betrayed me, at all, in any capacity, I could write you off and be moved on before I even notified you. Just who I am. I am still that way. It does not mean I don’t feel sad, or get upset, I do. I just am not going to be a push over. I give my father credit for that character trait. He was no push over and would put a woman in her place in a heartbeat, well he would put anyone in their place, but he was old school. He wasn’t letting a woman talk down to him and I guess I used to be that way as well. Not proud of it, not being arrogant, just stating facts.

See one thing you have probably already realized, once you get to know me, you either hate me or love me. There is no in between. I do not apologize for that. I will tell you that I am loyal to those I feel are loyal to me. I am a protector; I am fierce and I am quick to cut a person who fucks with me or my own. I am what my wife tells me is an Enneagram 8. After doing research she is correct. I guess that is another reason why I have always had an easy time with females. I think deep down most females want to have a man who is dominant. Most women don’t want a man who is a sheep. They prefer the lions of the world. I have never been accused of being a sheep. I am definitely a man’s man. Now hold up, let me stop you right there. Let me clarify something, I am definitely sensitive. I 100% wear my feelings on my sleeve and I love hard. So, when I say I am a man’s man, I am, but I am also not afraid to show my feelings. I will cry in movies, Rocky…check, it always gets me. Warrior with Tom Hardy, I will ball my eyes out.

My first trip with my 2nd and current wife Amy, we weren’t married yet and I broke down to her talking about my father, my love for him and his passing. While I am strong, brave, fearless, I am soft, weak and broken. Amazing how someone can be so many things. One thing those close to me know is if you need me, I will give you the shirt off my back. I will do what ever it is I can to help you if you are in need. The problem with people like me, you always expect others to respond the same way and they rarely do. Realizations like that make life a lot less fun. Everyone is different, I get that. I generally do not hold grudges and I tend to forgive people pretty easily. I do have my list of those that will never, ever get my forgiveness. They are pure evil. They are what I consider to be the lowest of the lows. You have to realize, the old saying that no one good deed goes unpunished is so true. I have learned that and lived it more times than not.

One example that my wife Amy has finally instilled in me is that it is not always my place to set the record straight. Especially to those that have no relationship to me. I have always been one to call a spade a spade and everyone loves the truth until you are truthful to them. This was a distinct issue with my mother and myself growing up. My mother was ruthless in her words. I don’t think she ever knew the hurt that she put on me with her words. There were times growing up and I thought about killing myself because my mother would get in my head about what a failure I was. Like I said, I used to cry and scream and beg my mom not to tell me that she failed as a parent because I was such a horrible child. I used to beg my mother to just love me. Most people never knew the real person my mother was.

Growing up we were heavily involved in the church. I mean we went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening. My mother came across as one of the sweetest, most loving people who never met a stranger. It was true. She could be all of those things. What you didn’t see was behind the closed doors, the insecurities, the anger she possessed, the mental instabilities that were often put off on me. I was used as a door mat many times due to her own in securities. I am sure my older sister received some of the issues but mostly she was given everything in life and I was always forced to work for what I wanted. A couple of examples, my older sister turned 16 given a “new” used car, totaled it, got a brand-new car. I turned 16, I got a 1978 Buick, a tank. Of course, my parents knew better than I did, I totaled that car on my way to summer school with a friend in the car with me on the interstate, passing cars like crazy doing over 100 MPH. I ended up hitting a parked car in the emergency lane of the highway attempting to pass an 18-wheeler doing 85 MPH when I hit that car. Totaled both cars, I suffered a gash to the head and walked away. Luckily, I didn’t kill myself, my friend in the car or anyone in the other car. That other car was empty thankfully. Needless to say, I got another Buick and you best believe I had to pay for that. My sister never paid for anything. When she went to college, they got her a new apartment, furnished it and anything I ever got, I always worked and paid for it. I am grateful because my father always explained to me that it was the responsibility of the man to work and provide in the world. Times have changed now and it is hard for families, well most families to live off a single income. Growing up though, my father taught me that I had to work, and I always did.

Point is, growing up I was always held to a different standard. I was and I am still ok with that. I get it. As a man, you have a responsibility and I believe it is that responsibility that is missing in today’s generational males. The issues I had growing up truly were not with my father, it was always with my mother. I always wanted something so much more with my mother. I had it briefly when I was very young and then it vanished.

Please allow me to take some responsibilities of the erratic dynamics of the relationship with my mother. You see I was not a bad kid, but I most definitely was no angle. I was a class clown. I had a mouth on me. I was suspended from school numerous times. Damn those hypocritical Christian schools and the political favorites they blatantly show. Of course, I was in no way going to back down and let shit slide. You can hold me to a standard, but you damn sure better be holding me to the same standard you hold everyone else to. See, growing up I was never a yes man. I was in your face, calling you out for your bullshit. Take it from me, that never goes over well!

A few examples, me and another student were caught cheating on a test. I was suspended, yet the other kid, who’s parents donated a great deal of money to the school, well he was given detention. Absolute bullshit! Then we had a school function off school grounds at the local ice-skating rink. Well my good friends had recently returned from Savannah, Georgia for St Patrick’s Day and they brought me a t-shirt. Well I wore this said t-shirt to the ice-skating rink that night of the school fund raiser. Needless to say, the next morning when I went to school, I was called into the Dean’s office, apparently, they did not like my May The Luck of The Irish Be With You, Lucky Lepracondom t-shirt at all and suspended me for that. Seriously?

Well, I believe the next little scenario truly is the nail in the coffin. Again, keep in mind I was never suspended for doing drugs, drinking alcohol or anything like that. It was for minor things. For example, as a junior in high school I was taking sophomore bible class for the second time. Oh man, we had a teacher named Mr. Farr, best way I can describe Mr. Farr is that he was a light, red headed albino. He was about as nerdy as a teacher could be. Anyway, being the class clown that I was, we were watching a movie in the class that day. Keep in mind this was back in 1990 so we had the TV on a rolling cart with a VCR player and a remote control. Well good ole Mr. Farr set the TV up and stepped out of the room for a second. While he was out, I of course took the remote control. Everyone in the class knew I had it. When Mr. Farr comes back into the room, he hits play on the VCR player and then went and sat down. As soon as he hit play, I hit stop with the remote control. Mr. Farr sits down and realizes the VCR isn’t playing, he gets up and hits play. This time he sees that it says play on the screen and he turns to head back to his desk to sit down. I hit stop again. He realizes again it isn’t playing, he goes up to the VCR again, hits play, and this time he stands there and watches the video start and as soon as he turns to sit down again, I hit stop. The class is erupting with laughter. I am a hit! This time he goes back up and he hits the VCR trying to fix it and when he hit it, I hit fast forward on the remote, it pops up on the TV screen as fast forwarding and he then scrambles to hit stop. The class is dying, it is so loud in the room with laughter. The problem is Mr. Farr was not laughing. Long story short, he finally turned around to tell the room to quiet down and he catches me red handed with the remote. I can honestly say I have never seen a face that red before. He was definitely angry. His response to me was, “OUT…GET OUT, GO TO THE PRINCIPALS OFFICE”. Of course, I went, of course I got suspended. It was just a month or two later after school had ended that my parents received a letter that I was not allowed to come back for my senior year. My father took it very hard. He went to the school and as he stated it got down on his hands and knees and begged them to let me graduate from there since they took his money for those years and then to not let me graduate really devastated him at the time. Later in life, he recognized that it was the best thing that could have ever happen to me. Both of my parents realized later in life that I should not have never been enrolled at that school. Truth be told, there were more drugs at that school than the public high school I graduated from.

I guess you could say I was a problem child. I had all types of events growing up in my teen years that would seriously challenge any parent. I took my father’s car out when I was 15 and they were out of town, wrecked it. Parked right back in the driveway hoping they wouldn’t notice; boy was I dumb. I paid $1300 to get it fixed though. As a bag boy at a local grocery store, I gave my parents money every day from my tips and my paychecks to pay the damage off. In my mind, I did the crime and I did the time. Again, I didn’t kill anyone and I paid for the damage. I didn’t hit another car, I hit a freaking guardrail trying to be cute. I now know that was not the proper way to be in a car.

My senior year put me back with my childhood friends I had grown up with since kindergarten and had attended school with until 8th grade. I was so happy to be in the school, my grades were much better, I played football and by saying I played football, I was on the team and probably played 4 plays all year. It didn’t bother me; I didn’t know shit about organized football. I played soccer as well. It was a big school and things were going very well for me. I was still the class clown, but at this school, it was accepted more so than before. I was really into the ladies, really liked to drink and was all about having a good time. I can remember times my senior year, I would walk around school with a big Tropicana bottle of orange juice filled halfway with vodka and no one ever said a word. None of the teachers knew, that is how big the school was. I was definitely a deviant my senior year and though I was not into heavy drugs, I did experiment with weed, which I honestly did not like at all. I always preferred to be going and I was already high strung enough, I loved alcohol but not a fan of the devil’s lettuce! I even tried LSD a few times, that was really fun, but I had heard the horror stories of permanent trips that people never came back from so I was not going to tempt fate to put me into a mental state that I could not recover from. Same thing with cocaine, it was every where back in the day. My issue was I knew I would love coke too much so I never, ever tried it. I pretty much stuck with alcohol. Alcohol and ladies were my drugs of choice. Both of those always seemed to get me into situations that were not ideal.

I remember a beach trip we took to the family condo down in Panama City Beach, Florida and I was allowed to take my friend down with me. Well this was the Spring Break before I graduated, I believe, anyway, I was 18 and my curfew was 11. Every night my friend Nathan and I would take my mother’s Cadillac out and we would have to be in at 11 and give her the keys. Our condo was on the bay, so we would come in, turn the keys over and tell her we were going out back to fish. Which we actually went out and would drink and on the first night we were down there, we were walking around the yacht club and noticed two of the yachts had mopeds on the dock. We took them, well we attempted to take them, one wouldn’t start, so we took the one that would start. Man, oh man, what fun. Every night after we would check in for curfew, we would give my mom her keys and then we would go get the moped we kept a few buildings down and head straight out for the strip in Panama City. We did this all week. My father came down on a Saturday I believe and we were set to head home Sunday. Well that Saturday night, we didn’t go out, because my girlfriend at the time was in Panama City and her and a couple of her friends came over to hang with us by the pool. Well me, trying to be cool, decided I would go get the moped because we had some wine coolers in the moped basket and I thought it would be fun. Well since I was in a hurry to get back, I didn’t drive along the roads, I decided to cut time short and cut across the golf course. Wrong move. Security stopped me for driving on the golf course, they then found the alcohol and immediately took me to my father. Well as they were talking, they realized that the moped I was in possession of was just like the one reported stolen earlier that week. I had to quickly explain that a guy let me use it and it was his alcohol, not mine. I then told them I would go get Nathan and he and I would explain everything. I took off, got to Nathan, explained to him the police were after the two of us for theft. We took off, we left the girls and ran down the bay. We left the resort, crossed through people’s private yards and realized we needed to get across the bay. We found a jon boat in a yard, grabbed it and started paddling across the bay with our hands. We made it about 50 yards when we started noticing it was filling up with water. There was no plug in the boat. As the optimist that I have always been, I told Nathan we could just swim the bay. Forget the fact it was around midnight and the other side of the bay was about a mile away, we said fuck it. We started swimming. All I can tell you about that swim was we were almost hit by a barge crossing through the channel, they could not see our heads sticking out of the water in the middle of the night. Our nipples were rubbed raw by the layer of seaweed on top of the water. We swam for what I would estimate to be 2 or 3 hours. During the swim, I continued to tell Nathan we were going straight to Miami and he was like, “Fuck you, my parents still love me”. Needless to say, we finally made it across the other side, problem was we came to what was some type of shipping/railroad yard. The wall we arrived at was several feet out of the water with large tires attached to it for boats to dock to. There were no stairs and it was so hard pulling ourselves up due to the us swimming for the past two or three hours. Once we got up, we realized we had to climb not one, but two large fences with barbed wire to get out of that facility. We finally got on a road that had a Jimmy Walter’s manufactured home for sale. We went inside and by this point, we were shivering so bad from being in the water for so long, hyperthermia was definitely kicking in. The inside of the home was not finished at all and was covered in sawdust. We did the only thing we could think of and took the huge plastic sign down that was up in front of the house, we used that as a blanket and went to sleep. Not knowing where we were, what time it was or anything else, it was a bleak night.

The next morning, I woke up around 630 and called my father and told him where I was. He came and picked us up and we had managed to be 17 miles away from the condo. It was not a fun ride at all. We got back to the condo, we got ready for church and went to church. Of course, after church, I had a scheduled meeting with the Chief of Police of Panama City. I explained to the Chief of Police the gentleman who loaned us the moped and I will never, ever forget he asked me to describe the guy and I did. I even happened to mention the man wearing a pink shirt and that I thought to myself the guy might be gay and never once realizing the Chief of Police was wearing a pink shirt. SMH. Only I could be that stupid. I knew no one believed me, not the Chief of Police or my father. They both knew I was lying. Lucky for me though, they owner of the moped said since there was no damage to the moped and that it was actually filled with gas, they would not be pressing charges. I was so thankful. Thank thankfulness went away quickly when the Chief of Police told me I was banned from Panama City and if were to ever return with my parents that I was to notify him personally of my presence in Panama City.

Well I thought ok, we survived another stupid decision. Life goes on. After my visit with the Chief of Police, we were finally heading home. My dad made sure Nathan and I rode with him in his car on the way home. What a car ride home. My parents always had the knack for telling my friends they expected this type of behavior from me, but not from them. I was like WTF? Who was I kidding though, they were right? Man oh man, that car ride home was horrible. It reminded me of a time I accidentally shot my dad’s car window out with my BB gun. He made me sit outside and tell that car window I was sorry I shot your window out for 4 straight hours. At the end of those 4 hours, my dad came outside and told me, “See son, it doesn’t matter how many times you say you are sorry for something, there are just some mistakes that saying sorry doesn’t fix”. He was right, my father always had a way of showing me the light in ways that I still remember to this day. That car ride home was one I will never forget and that was the last time I ever got into trouble like that again.

I know what you are thinking, you are reading this and you are probably like I would put you up for adoption too! The truth is, I was a good kid. I loved hard, I was respectful and I always tried to do the right thing. My father used to explain to my mother that you just have to be patient with him, he has got all this testosterone running through him and it is making him crazy right now, but he will be alright. My father always had my back, he would never let anyone do his children wrong. Do not get me wrong, when I was wrong, he let me know it. He never held it against me though. He always would punish me with love. Sometimes that meant having a belt to my ass, to the point I couldn’t breathe from crying so hard. In the end though, it was always my father who would come back to my room crying from having to punish me. My father loved me and I loved that man more than life itself. I miss him so much. Having a father like that, I always knew I could never fail in life. Oh, I failed plenty, don’t get me wrong, but he taught me to always get back up and keep going.

Thanks to the benefits of the kindness of some people, I was graduating high school without a criminal record! Hell, my mother was so happy that I was graduating. She honestly didn’t think I would graduate from high school. Again, it was her negativity and lack of faith in me. Sad to say, that lack of faith in me carried on for years and years.

Now that I had survived high school, I was a man. I was going to college. I ended up attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I suffered an ankle injury in high school playing football my senior year, so I decided to wait until after I graduated to have surgery. With surgery being in Birmingham, I went to UAB so I could do my rehab in Birmingham. Little did I know that the chain of events that lead me to UAB would ultimately change my life, forever.

Being 18 and going to college meant getting my own apartment just like my older sister did, right? Fuck no. I was stuck at home with a 12 o’clock curfew. I was like you do realize that is when the parties start in college right? Crickets. That is all I ever received from my parents. Well once I started at UAB, I was grabbed up to rush Kappa Sig fraternity. UAB was a small commuter school at the time and the fraternities are nothing like they were down in Tuscaloosa or Auburn. Never the less, I rushed Kappa Sig. I really enjoyed the parties, meeting the college women that attended the parties was really all I ever cared about. My father looked at fraternities the same way he looked at country clubs, like having to buy your friends. He didn’t see the benefits, the connections that you could make. As I have always said, it isn’t what you know, it is WHO you know! I still believe that to this day. Anyway, he said if I kept my grades up, he would pay for it.

At one of the many mixers, I soon became attracted to a girl who was Alpha Gam. Man, she was pretty at the time, and not just that, she was fun. We would hook up, hang out and things like that. We never had sex; we were never a couple. She was having too much fun with guys from other fraternities as she was with me. I was totally cool with that, as I too was having fun with other girls. I never expected to slow down and I really never had any intention of settling down and having a girlfriend. Funny how life brings people into your life though. As I was hanging out with this girl’s best friend, we were all friends, things caught me off guard. I will never forget, one day, we were talking, Stephanie and I, Stephanie being the best friend of the girl I was sort of seeing. She thought it was wrong how the other girl was leading me own and at the same time, leading other guys on too. I tried to explain to her, I didn’t care and that it truly didn’t bother me. I was putting on that male bravado show that I was great at. It was at that moment, she stopped me in my tracks and told me she could see right through me. I had never had any girl talk to me like that and call me out like that. Hell, I didn’t even know if she was right or wrong, did I care about the other girl more than I let on? At that point, that was not what mattered. I finally found a girl who saw me for me. When that happened, my feelings automatically shifted. Stephanie who was nothing more than friend, was suddenly becoming my best friend. So, I asked her if she wanted to go on a date and she was like, I have to talk to my friend. I can not do her that way until I have her permission. I thought WTF, fuck that bitch. She is dating other guys, we aren’t dating at all, why does it matter? Well she did ask and the other girl said she was totally fine with it. Apparently, she wasn’t, their friendship ended and they were never really friends after that. Stephanie wasn’t too blame, she did the right thing, neither one of us ever thought that the two of us would end up dating. We did though.

Things progressed and I spent a majority of my time at Stephanie’s apartment watching Beavis and Butthead and just hanging out. Our friendship turned into a love story. Little did I know that love story would evolve into so much more and take me places I never imagined. There were tensions between us, her family was from South Alabama and had recently moved to New Jersey. She was not from a wealthy family and she always seemed to struggle. She worked and tried to rely on her family for food, medical and the basics of life, but they failed her during their own struggles. I will never forget a time that Stephanie was so sick, she called her mom in New Jersey asking for some money so she could go to the Dr. I was sitting on the bed next to her and her mom proceeded to scream at her and told her she had already sent her money and that she didn’t have more to send. I immediately called my mother and explained the situation to her and she gave Stephanie the money to go to the Dr. I often gave Stephanie my entire paychecks to help her with her rent and food and bills. There were some very strong differences in our backgrounds though. I was raised a devout Christian and Stephanie was Jewish. Her parents were staunch Democrats and my parents were Republicans. I knew all this going into the relationship and when you are young, you don’t see the forest for the trees at times. I have always been a dreamer and a person who keeps his head in the clouds. I just assumed all that stuff would work out.

One thing I did not anticipate was the fact that Stephanie’s father had moved to New Jersey for a new job and they could not afford for Stephanie to be out of state in college. After a year or so of dating, probably not even that long, Stephanie said she was having to move to New Jersey and drop out of college. My world was shattered. I was like hell no, you can’t leave. I had never been in a true relationship and now all of sudden I was going to lose yet another woman I loved. I could not let it happen.

We talked about our options and she invited me to move up there. She said I could live in her parent’s house as they had a room downstairs, I could share with her brother who was a year younger. Of course, I had never been to New Jersey, I had never met her parents or her brother. Well, I had never let fear of the unknown stop me from doing anything, so I said yes, I will move with you. I went home that afternoon and asked my dad to come into my room so I could sit down and talk to him. I explained the situation to him and told him I was moving to New Jersey. He simply told me I was doing no such thing. I broke down to him and told him I loved this girl; I was going to marry this girl and I was in deed moving. I finally received the blessing from my father. My mother on the other hand was not happy, of course she never was, so that wasn’t a concern of mine. A few weeks later, we had our plan in place, we put together a yard sale over at my Aunt Carole’s house and sold everything we could to get money for our move. We left my car in Alabama and then took off to New Jersey!