Little | Interesting Thing

Interesting? Me? Well, I guess you could say that! I am an oxymoron. I can be at times very perplexing though at other times I am very simple indeed. I am not the type of person who likes to be noticed, but I do let my unknown persona get to me. I would like to feel accepted, and yet I could care less what someone thinks about me. I seem to be a walking contradiction.

I cannot figure it out, maybe you can help?

My interesting story just happens to be something about me that has stayed in the closet until recently, and it's not the typical closet cleaning story either. Mine began a while back, boy I'd have to say ever since I was about 11 years old, or so. Words have always played a major role in my life, and from such a young age I was introduced to a plethora of them ranging in all colors, and combinations imaginable. And until recently, and I do mean quite recently, I was unable to express them openly. It was as if I had been under some sort of dictatorship that I was voluntarily submissive to, yet only for my survival was it done so willingly. I cannot imagine another soul being placed under such stressful and horrible control, yet that was my fate and I still have such vivid memory of each of them it scares me so. Now in writing this I do not intend to seek pity, or some sort of hatred towards the persons responsible for such maltreatment, but I offer it as a way to explain why I am the way I am, and that is all.

Mine was a typical, if there is a typical one, childhood growing up. I went to school, played with friends, and watched Inspector Gadget without fail everyday. Yet it was that very mundane lifestyle that must have drove my family insane. I cannot say for sure that it is the sole cause of the downward fall or our family, but I can say, after 25 years of careful speculation, that indeed it must have contributed somewhat immensely to the tragedy that later ensued.

I was a bastard. Go ahead and laugh it up chuckles, but I was the very definition of what a bastard was. Someone born outside of wedlock, but it wasn't my choice so sue me. I didn't ask for it, but society likes to label everything, and rather than be a dumbass, I can live with bastard. Hey, at least it's true! Well as most marriages that are doomed start out, usually it is due to some sort of pressure, or some other force causing feelings of cold feet and angst. So why not get married and fix it? Wrong. Mistakes happen, life goes on. I never knew my father, and to this day I only know his name. Though I wonder, I am not sure I will ever be able to find out what happened to him, or if I'd even like to.

A few years passed, and that "M" word happened for a second time. Along came new ideas, new rules, new lives, and an entire complex way of life that I couldn't and wouldn't ever understand. I never felt quite like I fit in. I'm not saying my parents didn't love me at some point, or that on occasion they really do, but how can you handle dealing with such horrible blows such as:

"I should have given you up," or
"I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up homeless on the street," or
"I'll beat you within an inch of your life!?"

And what if anything warrants such a response from someone who is supposed to have your general wellbeing at stake? I learned to survive my entire childhood, and I have had a lot of experience. I am not saying that I am some sort of person worthy of sainthood, or even someone who deserves someone to "feel" for me, but I do feel that I have overcome things that are in many ways insurmountable by most. I do not compare my struggles with anyone else’s, because they aren't worthy of that at all. I am actually, God only knows why, grateful for each and every trial that came my way, because I think I am much stronger a person for them.

I put down that I won a contest for having a poem published online, and read over a radio station in Salt Lake City. I am very unsure about myself a lot of times, and I guess I just have always been able to write poetry as my escape. I am not sure why I can’t possess that same confidence when I am able to express words in private with ease. And ever since I can remember I have been using poetry to cope with my life. At first I was scared to let anyone know that I did such a thing, (being an athlete, and writing poetry don't homogenize too well) and absolutely terrified that my family would read my entries and criticize my very thoughts and discredit every idea I possessed. Living in fear no more, I now have been published and given credit for my thoughts on more than one occasion. Confidence is still slim, but slowly gaining in my favor.

My childhood was a rough one to say the least, and my parents’ marriage wasn’t the best. It lasted for quite some time, twenty-three years to be exact, it to is now coming to a proverbial close. That is the part that is perplexing. I could see it from the beginning. That an immature child of only "not enough years to matter yet” was keener to the inevitable than two grown "mature" beings. Maybe we could all use a little lesson in age really doesn't matter, but then again I am just a kid. What do I know?