I always find myself reflecting on some significant life or social conundrum after sometimes the most random of events. I was at a Starbucks today getting some script organization and sides done for my upcoming film and I saw a girl walk in. Being a curious person, practically every time door opens to a room I'm in and someone enters I look up to see who it is. When this girl walked in I felt like I knew her from somewhere, but then when she passed by she seemed a little less familiar. She was there very briefly and when she turned to leave and walked past me again I felt again like I recognized her. However, I couldn't get a solid frontal view on her. I watched her as she walked out and she disappeared behind a wall, but then she came back to get a newspaper, and finally I got a frontal view of her and recognized her right away.
She had reddish brown hair but I remembered it being blonde in the past. She was actually the first girl I actually became acquainted with when my family moved to Milwaukie, Oregon early in my first grade year. She lived only two houses up from me so we quickly became friends. I'd hang at her house a few times. Her family lived in what would have been a really nice old house if only they took good care of it. Just to create the setting, I remember the exact date we met, because it was after our very first day of school that we met and became friends. It was October 29, 1992, over twenty years. And while this girl and I always remained cordial to each other, only a few years down the road we stopped really ever hanging out together. She introduced me to my friend Jason who was my best friend for about five years. But it seemed as though from the moment we met her life just began to go further and further downhill. I don't know any of the details but I remember her mom was a wacko and a hardcore alcoholic (and probably drug user). Her dad was a nice guy but a total deadbeat and as time went by they started having lots of bizarre people hanging out there.
I have a feeling she left home fairly young and I don't remember seeing her after middle school, and I don't think she was in middle school that long. I remember, my last serious interaction with her was when I had a crush on a girl at the start of seventh grade and she went and told her (apparently on my behalf). And I think even by middle school she had no stable home and had fallen into drugs. I recall hearing at one time that she served a stint in prison for serious drug possession. I believe she was selling drugs as well... but not as much as she was using them. Seeing her today, and not having the chance to speak with her, what stood out to me was her face, which didn't look terrible, but looked at least like the face of someone who had serious acne problems when she was younger. They were obvious effects from serious drug usage. Periodically she has popped into my head in past years, primarily because she serves as an example of what can happen when your life goes astray, especially at a very young age. It seems to me she hit rock bottom fairly hard.
But today, in seeing her for just a few moments, I felt a sense of happiness. I remember the few times I'd seen her before, during her drug-taking period, she was always chain smoking, her hair was dirty and stringy and she wore clothes that looked like she stole from some homeless guy. And of course her body would tweak out on her a little from time to time. However, when I saw her today she moved very steadily and she had a calm look about her. Her expression looked relaxed and there didn't appear to be a sense of fear or loss there. She was dressed somewhat nice as well and it all just made me hope and feel that life has become better for her and that her stable appearance was evidence that she had left that terrible life behind, or at least a part of it.
As I thought about that I pondered the path I had taken in these 20+ years. Back then life was simple and my family was doing well. The first signs of strain in the hope and my parents marriage sparked up around 1996, when I was ten. They started fighting more and my dad gradually was becoming more and more of an annoyance to deal with. By the early 2000s my mother had slipped into a place of, I guess, acceptance of what she probably felt was a pretty crappy life. She drank a lot and got heavier due in part to the alcohol, but also, I believe, due to a lack of activity and a general unhappiness in her life. At the start of 2005, I was early into college, problems became worse when my uncle came to visit us, but due to health problems he was forced to live with us for a year and a half. As with my father, my mother had a lot of unsettled problems with my uncle (her brother) as well. She was only marginally happy when my dad was gone during the day, but now she had her brother looming around the house as well. We were all angry and unhappy to some degree or another. After my uncle moved out in the summer of 2006 things seemed to be getting better. A year later my dad's family sold a big chunk of property of which we got $250,000 out of. But in that exchange my mom told my dad, who'd been working less and less so he could be off doing activist work, to promise that he wouldn't stop working. My mom had accepted at that time that it was my dad's job to make the money and thus wasn't doing much to get back to work herself. And I was working my first job and only making about $7,500 a year. And as the son, going to school and working part time I certainly wouldn't be able to support the family. And my dad got a good job, and then, about two months after we got this chunk of money he quit, claiming that his boss had accused him of using a company car to go to a stripper joint when really he was at a strip mall to make copies of paperwork at a Kinko's and there just happened to be a stripper place in the mall and the tracker on the vehicle marked the vehicle as being there instead of the Kinko's. Fine. I don't think my dad was at a strip joint and covering for it because he volunteered this information to me and mom. We wouldn't have known anything about these accusations if he hadn't come forth with them. But whatever the case, this was not a good enough reason to just up and quit, especially without having any prospects for another job.
But that was my dad. He put what he wanted ahead of taking care of his family, something he didn't do when he was younger. He was one of those guys who would justify when we got flat broke because no money was coming in. He'd just throw a hyperbolic scenario at us like, "Hey, we're not homeless," or, "You think we've got it hard? Trying going and fighting in the Middle East." And yes, it's true, were we the most unfortunate people in the world? No, not even close. But such is hardly a justification for being a lazy ass for the sake of one's own selfish desires, especially when it's at the expense of his family. And I doubt he was stupid enough to believe it when he said things like that. It was simply a justification for him. Finally my mom was fed up. The only time in my life when I was completely speechless was in 2008 when my mom told me she wanted to leave my father. Of course now I look back and see it was best. Damn, she should've left him much earlier than that. But that was the final undoing. They tried the whole separation route but, as is the case with so many middle-aged married couples these days, they waited far too many years for a simple separation to fix things. Had they started working on it a decade earlier, who knows? It would be months before they finally divorced and my father made my life hell through all of it. Then my mom moved out and it was just me and my father. I tried to deal with it as long as I could, but I literally became so fed up with him for so many reasons that it started effecting my health. He was going out drinking and going on several trips to Hood River, claiming he just needed to get out of town (but I'm pretty sure he had some chick up there that he was seeing, and fine, good for him).
There were two moments when it peaked for me. One was on my birthday that occurred in the midst of them trying a separation. As though it wasn't awkward having both my parents together along with many others who knew what was going on, we also went to a place that my dad went to frequently. And the whole time there was a waitress who flirted up a storm and got pretty cozy with my dad right there, on my birthday, in front of me and my mom, while they were both still married. Seeing as this girl was probably half my dad's age and, honestly, any woman would probably shy away from my dad after an hour because he's got a bit of an ego on him and he doesn't know how to shut up. And I don't mean that figuratively, I mean literally he has proven himself time and time again incapable of shutting up. Thus, I am totally convinced my dad paid her or talked to her beforehand and told her to do all of that to try and make my mom jealous. Sadly, he was the kind of person who would do that. And I don't mean to slam on my dad too much. He's not a horrible person, but he was the project of a crappy childhood in which he was dominated by his overbearing father. It's very interesting. Both my parents had three siblings, my father had the most strained relationship with his father and my mom had the most strained relationship with her mother. And, as human psychology often shows us, it's those who were the most cast aside that do their best to fix things later on. When my grandfather contracted Parkinson's Disease in the late 80s my dad went and saw him at least five times as often as any of his siblings and when a problem arose he was always the one who jumped in the driver's seat to take care of it. Later on, around 2001, my grandmother suffered multiple strokes that left her bed-ridden the final five or so years of her life. She slept pretty much 22 hours a day, but after that happened my mother went and visited her almost bi-monthly even though sometimes it was a 300 mile drive just over the Oregon/California border. When those parents got sick it was those they struggled with the most who jumped in to take care of them. So I certainly understand the fact that my parents had their issues.
But the final nail in the coffin between my dad and I was in May, 2009. Since I was a kid it had been understood in our home that if I busted my ass in school and did my best to earn grants and scholarship money that they would compensate for the rest so I wouldn't go into extreme loan debt. This was an understanding for years and aside from that my dad told me, as we were preparing that property to be sold that he was planning to use a lot of that money to "put me through school", not just throwing me a few bucks to help me along. And here we were, we'd just received $250,000 only a year and a half before and I had been accepted into the University of Portland, one of the most prestigious colleges in the west. They only had a 3,200 enrollment because it's so hard to get into. It's a sister school with Notre Dame University for goodness sakes! And here I was, out of college for almost two years, but my college grades among other things I gave them with my application was so impressive to them that I was accepted on the spot. And on top of that, I earned almost $20,000 yearly grant funds to pay for school. I'd say I more than held up my end. But here I was, stuck living with my father who was drinking and periodically vanishing, but still had a huge chunk of change on him. All I needed was an extra $10,000 to cover my two years there. At this moment my father took the opportunity to throw that classic "well who told you to go to such an expensive college?" at me before saying that he didn't just have that kind of money to give me (when the opposite was the case). When my parents divorce went through, only two months before, it was established my dad had approximately $240,000 to his name. And now, not even 60 days later, he suddenly doesn't have $10,000 for his son. He then denied that they ever made that pact with me to cover what was left over of my college funding and even claimed he didn't have the money because he'd spent to much on the divorce (in a manipulative way pointing the blame at my mom since she was the one who wanted the divorce). But theirs was not a financially messy divorce, and again, when the divorce was processed he still had way over $200,000. This was what my father was really good at, was convincing you that you were wrong and that such was okay. He did that to me for years, forcing me to let him off the hook when I really should have got in his face. He had done this for years to get out of things.
For some reason though, this little financial aid tiff stuck with me. With mom gone and more time around my dad to see what he was really like I suddenly realized, no! He's wrong. This isn't okay. That night I didn't come home and slept at the church I attended. The next day I didn't go home and stayed at my moms. A night at my mom's turned into a week..... and a month. And being my mom, she was like, "You can stay as long as you want." Of course, she knew I was probably losing my mind living alone with my dad and she even had a little guilt over that. I just never went home. My dad called and I didn't answer. Summer came and went and I was starting at the University of Portland, working a full time schedule with a 35-hour work week. I had no time to talk to anyone, let alone my dad. A night of anger turned into an estranged situation and I spent a good two years so angry at my father for years worth of pain that he caused me. Fortunately, that anger eventually passed, as it often does, and I was able to look at things more objectively. My mom and I both have let our anger go against my dad. As my mother simply puts it: "Your father's a good man. But he was a lousy husband and father." And sadly, that's a fairly accurate assessment. I didn't see my father again until the summer of 2012, over three years time had passed. It was good to see him and we didn't make a big deal about the time we hadn't seen each other. I think he just wanted to act like it didn't happen so he wouldn't have to, as he often avoided, admit that he was the problem. But he was still the same person. He left me a few embittered voicemails after that accusing practically everyone in my life of poisoning me against him. That really got to me, because by that time I was 26-years old and he was still treating me like a child, like I was incapable of making up my own mind about things and so easily dissuaded by the remarks of others. But again, that was just him trying to push the blame for our falling out onto the shoulders of others. He was still the same person with the same problems, and that's the reason I have chosen not to be around him. It's a conscious choice; when he finally decides to grow up and change maybe I will be willing to start a relationship with him again, but not one where I'm the child and he pulls all the strings. I acknowledge that it's a decision I've made. In issues regarding conflict with friends and family we often say we "can't" see that person, but still, in not seeing them we are making the conscious decision to do so. I haven't seen my father now for about a year and a half now and I am, unfortunately though it is, much happier with him not in my life than I ever was when he was there. Again, he wasn't a bad man but he just became more and more unbearable to live with.
There's lots of other trying experiences that have occurred in my life, but I went into such detail about my own life to make a point: has my life been shitty at times? Absolutely! Has it been the worst life ever? No, not even close. I'm glad for this challenges I've faced, especially in these more recent years. University of Portland ultimately didn't work out, but not because I couldn't hack it. I rocked a 3.55 g.p.a. during my one year there. But my directive just changed, moving from a focus as a writer to a focus as a filmmaker, which is where I am at now. Life is still good and I still have an upbeat and positive attitude in general despite the many opportunities I had to turn down a much darker path. Fortunately, my greatest challenges came as a young adult as oppose to being a child like my friend was when her greatest challenges began. And imperfect though my parents were, they were a damn sight better than a lot of parents out there. They still raised me, so whoever I am they deserve some credit on that. Whatever my circumstances were I never turned to drugs or alcohol, or a criminal life, or life on the streets. And that could have happened as it has for many people.
So while I acknowledge the struggles and imperfections of my life I don't try to hyperbolize them, especially those that happened years ago that I've had the time to deal with and hopefully move on from. And I acknowledge at the same time, regardless how much was her responsibility, that this friend of mine has suffered through experiences I couldn't even understand. We're all so good at exaggerating our problems, especially when we're teenagers. As adults we all know how frustrating dealing with teenagers can be as every little thing they "want" becomes a need. But it's not only teens. Lots of people, especially those with struggles at a young age, those who are incredibly insecure, grow into adults who still over-exaggerate their problems. One of my closest friends has a mother who is going through a divorce with his father who, unlike my father, has busted his ass working to support his family. So she hasn't really had to do anything to support herself and has been living somewhat as a princess for years and the things she complains about are astounding to me, especially when you take what she says and couple it with the reality that she has been living a rather simple life for years. But in part that has possibly enabled her, but the point I am making out there is that we all need to stop and check ourselves, especially if we know we have a tendency to act in selfish or erratic ways. I hear people say sometimes, "Why do I always do 'this'?" to which I'm not very remorseful towards. It's one thing to have a problem and not recognize it, but if you're mentioning the problem and acknowledging it as a problem, that means you know it's a problem and thus it's your responsibility to take care of it. Take comfort in that and be grateful that you know there is a problem there. But instead we just use comments like that as a way to make people pity us and, sadly, we do sometimes. How often do we see someone post some self-loathing comment about themselves on Facebook, only because they're feeling bad and they want a bunch of pity. So-and-so posts, "I hate life cause nobody likes me." And people who post statuses like that always have friends, but they're selfish and so they are willing to alter reality to get a bunch of attention knowing people will give it to them. The worst part of it is, every now and then, someone will post on there what really needs to be said and what will be most helpful, such as, "Come on, you know you have friends. Be grateful for what you have." And when someone makes a post like that, others come and attack that person for being a jerk in this other person's time of need, when most of the time those who post this self-loathing nonsense just want attention and aren't willing to do anything about their problems. Everyone should be telling that person to stop acting like a spoiled brat, which reminding them that these comments are harsh, but being made by people who really care. But it's just so much easier to pander and it conveniently avoids any drama rising from a situation, but it doesn't fix a damn thing.
People need to learn to deal with their problems and if they are struggling themselves to deal with them none of us are doing them a service by pandering to them when we know they're just being drama queens. We need tough love as much as we need compassionate love. How many times has someone shouted someone else down for being a brat, or being selfish, and a short while later they became the best of friends because both sides acknowledged that such a situation needed to happen to turn things around? It happens all the time because we do need to be brought back to earth, and sometimes we need that aggressively. But what we need to do is learn to accept it as the truth when someone lays down the law on us that they are doing it out of love and compassion. But we're so great at taking such situations as attacks. And we just need to stop. I remember in years past how easy it was to dismiss harsh remarks from others that really needed to be said. I dismissed them then and now I look back and think, God! Why didn't I listen to them, they were so right!
Despite the pain and frustrations we face in out lives, there are almost always an excess of people out there who are suffering much more than we are, especially if we are currently being housed and fed. That alone is more than can be said of lots of people all by itself. Sure we're going to fly off the hands and play the victim card sometimes, that's only natural, but we need to try and keep such a thing from becoming habitual. We often always find we are more happy when we see and notice that there isn't as much pain and drama in our lives as we previously thought. So today, when I saw that old childhood friend walk in and walk out I reflected on my life and all the crap that's happened and come to the conclusion that it hasn't been so bad. She had it a lot worse and hopefully she's finding a way out of it, and if we both find ourselves under better circumstances a few years from now her journey would be a lot more impressive than mine because she had so much more to overcome. And I can't complain. Sure life isn't perfect. I don't have a car right now. Boo hoo. I'm not filthy rich. So what? But I'm one of a relative few who is doing what he loves. A few years back I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker and I haven't turned back. Every piece of work I've done is a little better than the last and I've learned many lessons from various projects I've worked on. I'm ecstatic over my next piece of work, which the daughter of a colleague of mine, whom I'd known all of 15 minutes, told me was an utterly brilliant idea (as though my ego needs that boost). So, hard though it sometimes is, looking forward is the best I can do because the past isn't perfect and the future is still unknown and waiting to happen.
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