Straight from the heart...

You know...I'm something of a writer. While I'm not that talented, I like to think that I'm at least somewhat decent. Anyway, there's this site, called Fictionpress.com where I publish my stuff, right? Well, I thought of resurrecting an old journal if you will. As I sat in front of the computer screen typing, I found that something strange happened. Something...very odd. I found that the words that I typed just seemed to flow out from my fingers. It was almost as if my mind was projecting the words directly into the screen for me (weird-sounding, I know). But from that, I think that I produced the best paragraph that I've ever written in my life. And I just thought that I would share it. :) It was a moment of realization, of self-discovery if you will, that has got me seriously thinking about writing more seriously again (I've started writing again in the past two weeks for the first time in about...three years).

It was almost as if the truth was laid out before my eyes as I typed. I almost couldn't believe it myself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by I

My name is Aaron. I was named after my mom opened the bible and put her hand down on a random page. Thankfully enough for me it was the story of the Exodus--so I got named after Moses' brother. I think that I’ve finally arrived to the point in my life where I can be completely honest with myself. Yet, I can’t be totally honest in my own head: I have to get it down on paper for both myself and the world to see. Even though I hide behind this magical invention that we call the “internet”, it’s something like a therapy for me. Because of the anonymity of the ‘net, I can feel free to say what I want to say to the world. Yes, I can have the whole world know my heart without actually knowing my face. But that just makes it all the easier to write this—which I NEED to do. Perhaps some of you who know me online or in real life will read this. Well, I don’t give a damn. I gotta say what I gotta say. If you guys think any less of me for it, then you can go fuck yourselves. I am who I am, dammit. A combination of genetics (thanks, mom for the mental disorders!), real life experiences (thanks dad for exacerbating them!) and the people that I’ve met in both real and virtual life made me who I am today. And you know what? I’ve actually become somewhat proud of myself, for who I am. I may have done things that I deeply regret, but I can’t allow them to hold me back. Now, like a veil that’s been lifted from my eyes, like a fog that’s been dispelled, that I’ve come to realize that I can’t look back on those things and harp on them. I can’t regret everything that I’ve done. Even the problems that I have with my parents I can’t harp on: they have their own problems and reasons for doing what they did. And even though they may be two very sad people with hard lives, even though that did not give them the justification to make my life any harder than it needed to be, I can’t blame them for all my problems. Yeah, I said it. I can’t do that shit. I need to deal with my own problems and I need to find a solution for them. Maybe I can receive the help of others. Maybe I can’t. But I do know one thing: I’ve got my whole friggin’ life ahead of me and I’ll be DAMNED if I’m going to let my past experiences hold me back.

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And I also have come to the realization that this is perhaps the longest post I've made here thusfar. Heh.

Very poignant, very touching.

I do understand your sentiments, and I agree that sharing
your thoughts can be very therapeutic.

I have learned a lot about myself and others by virtue of
this experience.

Keep writing, keep sharing.

Though try to space it and make the fonts larger, so that
old eyes can see it.

8)

Thats a good positive attiude to have Somedude21. :wink: Keep it up and Im sure it would take you far. I dont believe people should dwell much on their past..Life is too short not to see all the possibilities and enjoy every minute of it!

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2...nj/043008h.gif

~Kisses.

HTG

Thanks, girls. You have no idea what it means to me to get a good "review", heh. As the ego of every writer is easily shaken, having positive reinforcement is a very good thing.

As to sharing...you're serious about that? If you want, I could post some more. I also promise that I'll make it easier to read. :wink:

YW! Sure..only this time please make the text a bit bigger! And perhaps break them off in paragraphs? LOL So we dont need to use a magifiying glass. Hehe J/K :lol: :wink:

~Kisses.

HTG

All right, here goes nothing. Tell me if it's still too small or not. I'll enlargen the text if it is.

Yeah I know, it’s been awhile since I’ve written for this. But hopefully, I can still get my point across. This does not have a specific date attached to it. It’s simply…ramblings about what’s been going on in my life between the times of 2001 and present day—that would over six years now. Whoa. Well, it won’t be exact, because that’s six years that I have to try and remember. Instead, it’ll be what I can recollect…but there IS a lot that I can recollect. The following won’t be edited in any way, shape or form; the first draft will be my last. Since it’s supposed to be straight from the heart, editing it would take away from it its special (to me, at least) qualities. I was 14 when the last chapter happened. I’m now 20. And, man. So much has changed. But first let me start off where I remember. Let me start off from high school…

I remember it almost like it was yesterday. I had just graduated out of Molloy Education Center, and graduated into high school. I was so filled with hope and good expectations. I was finally beginning to take first those steps into the hallowed ground that was known as adulthood. Because, when you think about it, that’s what high school is. The first step into adulthood. It’s a training ground to help incorporate you into society: it gives you the social and academic skills to help you succeed in life—or hopefully does, anyway. I remember that the sky was dreary, and that my mother dropped me off at the front entrance of the school. As I walked across the field toward the entrance to the halls of Niles West High School on the border of Skokie and Morton Grove, Illinois, I was filled with excitement and perhaps a bit of trepidation. I was still in special education, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Would they be treating me any differently? Would students look at me like I was some kind of freak? Would I be outcasted? Little did I know, I would have the answers to those questions by the time my junior year rolled around. But that comes later.

I remember walking into the first floor classroom that day and being assigned my seat. I was in the middle of the room. Mr. Vickers was the teacher. He was transferred from Molloy to Niles West because we were the first “graduating class” of Molloy from the Project Able program, which was meant to rehabilitate and/or help children who had either gone astray or who had some kind of social, mental or behavioral disorder. Or a combination of the three. Anyway, I remember being introduced to Mrs. Kim, the Korean helper for the special education classroom. To this day, she is one of the nicer teachers I had in high school. For most of the day we were stuck in the classroom. I was only allowed to go outside of the classroom for four reasons: to use the bathroom, to go to my only allowed elective class, PE and lunch. Otherwise, we were stuck in that classroom all damned day like it was grade school all over again. What a pain in the ass that was. But you live with the card that you’re dealt with, right?

One thing to note before you go on further: when I was at Molloy, I was on medication. When I was in high school, I went off the meds. That was a mistake.

Anyway. This continued on for most of the year. The work was easy. It seemed that they were more worried about our mental health than anything (all six of us). This would come back to haunt me until…well, even now it does. It started in Molloy, but went on in high school, too: I was nowhere near prepared for the work side of high school. While I understand why they did this, that still doesn’t change the fact that I wasn’t ready. I believe in a balanced approach to things, after all: going all the way, one way or another will just lead to disaster…as it did with me. But again, I’m harping on the past. Time to move on and deal. I only remember a few of them: The Guatemalan Steve Gonzales, the white Punk Chris Abel, the seriously messed up Jamie Fisher, the crazy eventual Marine Erich Safian, the stuck up asshole Brendan…I think that’s all of ‘em. I still know and see all of them, save for Jamie who moved to Arizona after her Freshman year. Freshman year was really just a drag…but it was just an introduction to the living hell that would become my high school career. I only remember two other things from that year: meeting the cutest girl I’ve ever seen: her name was Go Eun (pronounced Koh-uhn), a South Korean immigrant. That was the first real crush I ever had, but alas, a combination of my weirdness and inability to approach women doomed that from the start. And the second thing that I remember—which I hope all you Americans remember—was 9/11. I remember walking into school like nothing happened, like it was a normal day. I was tired from staying up playing games all night, and not really in the mood to go to school. Then all of a sudden, at about 8:30-something AM the Principal announced on the loudspeakers:

“I’m sure that all of you have heard by now what’s going on in New York. All I ask is that you hope for the safety of those across the nation.”

I thought…’Wait, what’s going on in New York?’ and asked the same to Mr. Vickers. That’s when I learned that a plane had crashed into the WTC.

“A terrorist attack,” I said. “It’s gotta be.”

“We don’t know anything at this moment.” Mr. Vickers told me. “It could be that, it could just be that a plane went off course or lost control.”

“How do you lose control of a plane like that and fly into one of the most important buildings in New York?”

And then the second plane hit. “Yeah, like I said. Terrorist attack. Motherfuckers.”

The rest of the day we didn’t do any work at all. We just watched with the other special education class from the second floor in our room as the events unfolded on CNN. When the towers collapsed, I felt my heart drop to the pit of my stomach; seeing those towers collapse with all those people in them, seeing the people jumping out of the top floors of the towers, plummeting to their death…I couldn’t begin to fathom the loss of American life. I couldn’t believe it. The whole school was somber and sad. There were even people crying in the halls. I remember seeing half the normal people walking the halls as normal, but security was at its highest as I’ve ever seen it. I remember feeling hatred, rage, fear, terror, sadness…all rolled up into one complicated emotion. I remember saying out loud that we should have nuked Mecca at that moment. I honestly wanted every Muslim on the face of the planet to die horrible, painful deaths. On my way to the bathroom I passed a veil-wearing Muslim girl in the hallways. I remember calling her a terrorist and wishing that she would die. She ran away in tears, and goddammit, that was one of the worst things I did that year—hell, in my life, even. It wasn’t until later that I calmed down and realized just what I had did, said and felt. When I saw her again a week or so later just passing through the hallways, I apologized to her wholeheartedly. All the Muslims that I’ve met in the States are good people, and came here for the same reasons that my own ancestors did. She had no right to be treated the way that I treated her that day, and I made sure that she knew that. Never before had I spent so long thinking out and actually speaking an apology. I forget her exact reaction, but I think she accepted it.


So far, that's what I got for my freshman year. I'll post up more once I finish my junior year.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd here's the rest. Please don't think of me as too much of a loser for this. >_> I also appologize for it being long, but I just had to get this crap off of my chest.

Skip on ahead to my Sophomore year…

This is where things started to go down the tubes, so to speak. That year, I was thrust into high school life, taking all normal classes, save for homeroom and PE. Oh, and that one group session class that we had once a day. Damn did I hate that time of the day. Anyway, being that up until this point I hadn’t had homework since the fourth grade (I shit you not) and I never learned how to study…well, let’s just say that it was like teaching someone to swim by throwing them headfirst into a 10 foot-deep pool. I was completely, utterly lost. I didn’t even know how to write a damned paper!

I guess one of the bright spots of that year was two things: first, I was introduced to the thespian troupe that I would eventually join next year. Second, I was introduced to a variety of teachers, but the one that stuck with me the most was Michelle Hettinger. She was my English teacher for my Sophomore and Junior years, and she was the absolute best teacher I have ever had. She was a short, odd woman—total left liberal. But most importantly of all, she was sweet, caring and open about herself. She seemed to really care about her students, all of them. And everyone adored her back, even if they didn’t always get the grade they wanted from her (I’ve gotten many a C from her when I thought that I should have gotten at least a B). She made the best field trips, gave the best and most fun assignments, and it was just entertaining to watch her teach. Another teacher I met that year was one that I will never forget for all the chances that he gave me: Matt Johnson. This man was my special education teacher after Mr. Vickers left for a better job at Lincoln Jr. High, I believe (I don’t blame him—we were terrors, all of us). While he was one of the sterner people I’ve met in my short life, he was also one of the most understanding, rational and even considerate—not quite on the level that Ms. Hettinger was, but still up there. If it wasn’t for that man and a few other teachers caring for my well-being (I’ll get to them later), I probably would have failed high school. While I can’t say I learned any life lessons from him—if I did, I forgot them by now, heh—but he did help me through some troubled times, and was always there for moral support. Him and Ms. Kim really helped me.

Other than that, Sophomore year was bad. It kicked me in the ass hard. I mean, REAL hard. Like I said above, I never learned how to be a student. Sure, while I was at Molloy I was taught stuff, but it wasn’t on par with what other kids my same age were being taught. Not only that, but I was deprived of basic skills needed for a student to survive and strive. I was diagnosed with ADHD around this time, but didn’t think much of it; heck, I actually ENJOYED it for the most part. Being able to pull all-nighters with just a little bit of caffeine was pretty cool, after all. Furthermore, my lack of medication was starting to have an effect on me. I wouldn’t do anything about this until much later. It was around this time that I also started making a name for myself in the school. Not a good one either, mind you. No, those who didn’t know me, but knew my name knew me as some kind of psychopath who would kill you if you pissed him off. I do admit: I had had trouble with my anger ever since…well, I could remember. The fact that I was still going through puberty didn’t help to make the problem any better, either. Hell, it made it ten times worse, really, what with those raging hormones and all. The thing that people close to me knew and I knew was that I would never intentionally try to kill someone in cold blood. Back then I might have tried to harm someone if they pissed me off enough—rarely would it get to that point, though, because most people were scared of me. But never kill. I got over those dangerous thoughts once I got out of Molloy.

On to my Junior year…

Here is where things really went downhill in my life…and thankfully, I found my passion in life at the same time. Truly, it was the only thing that really saved me. What was that, you ask? As you already know, I was asked to join the thespian troupe back in my Sophomore year. I refused though, because I was not into acting at the time, nor was I willing to give the time commitment to be in the troupe. Well, in my Junior year, I decided to join the troupe by auditioning for the first play of the year, Metamorphoses. While I didn’t land any parts in that play, I was a part of the stage crew and helped to build everything in that show. This is also where I met the most prolific actor and director I have ever met: Mr. Wall. Not only did this man give me a chance with my meager acting abilities (as you’ll find out soon), but he was also great at teaching HOW to actually be an actor. I learned many a valuable thing from him, mostly basic stuff, and I still consider him to this day to be one of the key educative figures in my lifetime. I also met some pretty interesting characters while I was in the troupe—no pun intended—like Chris (not Abel), Pam, Megan, Mike “Dashi” Ardashnikov, Nate, Lev…there were so many names that I forget most of them. But I will always remember their faces. Hell, I’m bad with names anyway, so…yeah, sue me.

I remember doing stage crew for the next few shows, but didn’t actually get into a role. Then, one day, the musical Guys and Dolls was being done by the troupe. I knew almost nothing about the show, but the prospect of being in a musical enthralled me. I applied, hoping to get one of the main roles of course, but being that I couldn’t sing very well, I didn’t receive one. However, after the second round of auditions for non-singing roles, I received a call from Mr. Wall one night, telling me that I had received the role of Lt. Brannigan. I quite literally ran around the apartment screaming for joy: my first role as an actor, finally! The only disappointment that I had with the role was that Mr. Wall wanted me to voice Brannigan with an Irish accent. Once it was quickly found out that accents weren’t exactly my strongpoint, that idea was axed, however. So other than that, I just had to flesh out the character and remember his lines. Which, when you looked at it wasn’t so hard to do. The thing was, EVERYONE had fun with the show. Some of my fondest memories with the troupe during the show were some of the best in my high school career, if not my life. When the last day of the show came, I was actually very, very sad. I hated for something so good to have to end, but it did.

Speaking of stuff that had to end…there was a major blow dealt to the thespian troupe that very year. You see, there was a collection of four or so teachers that were being fired by the school district for undisclosed reasons; since the teachers weren’t tenured, the district did not have to disclose their reasons. Mr. Wall just so happened to be one of those teachers being fired. We all knew the reasons why he was being fired, too—but I won’t disclose them here because I’m not sure he would want them known. Anyway, two things that stuck with me from that meeting were this: that the heads of the district were not to be trusted for one. Second was a comment told to me by an asshole that I really didn’t like ever since I had started going to school:

“Why are you even here?” he said. “No one here likes you.”

While my face didn’t show it, my soul was crushed. The one place where I felt like I was accepted, and I didn’t even have any support? I felt like crying almost, but I basically told him to piss off. Little did I know, his words wouldn’t be very far from the truth. I wouldn’t discover that until next year, however. The meeting started and went on for what felt like hours (I think it was only really three), and at the end, even after testimonies from many parents, friends and students, they still decided to fire them all, Mr. Wall included. As soon as the verdict was made, someone screamed and began to cry. Everyone in the troupe—even the mostly either stoic or just plain mean Dashi—began to cry. There was a lot of embracing and crying and moaning…and Mr. Wall looked on at it all. I could see the disgust written on his face, but I knew that it wasn’t aimed at us. It was aimed at the school district board. The fact that one of the best teachers in the school was fired for bullshit reasons was something that none of us could comprehend. Mr. Wall would be allowed to stay for the rest of the year, but after that he would have to leave.

The last show that we had with Mr. Wall was Korczak’s Children. It was a true story about a former Polish army officer that ran an orphanage in Nazi-occupied Poland—for Jews. As you might have guessed, the story did not have a happy ending. Quite ironic, considering (note, that the play was not chosen because of Mr. Wall’s firing. The shows are chosen at the beginning of the year) that Mr. Wall would soon be leaving us for stupid reasons. I had a relatively minor role—I only spoke about five or six lines—but I still enjoyed it. And just like everyone, I was horrendously sad at the end of the show. But if there’s one thing that I walked away with from that show, it was that my true place in life was on the stage, acting. I made a decision right then and there that I would stay in the troupe as long as I could.

But that wasn’t the biggest thing that made me sad during the school year. No, it was something very, very different. Something that should have never happened, that perhaps set me in for the worst time of my entire life. Sometime during rehearsals for Guys and Dolls, I remember coming home from a long day of nothing but line memorizing, and I found my mom knocked out in bed. Opening the door, the smell of vodka wafted into my nostrils, and I knew instantly what had happened: my mother had relapsed again.

First a little history. My mother has always been a heavy alcoholic. She had been sober for a few years or so before my birth. Ever since she had broken up with her boyfriend Mike (who I still want to kill), she had been in a constant cycle of relapsing and recovering. Relapsing and recovering. The first time that she relapsed big time was when I was 10 years old. She had to go to a hospital for a few days, and I was left basically home alone for that time, though my mother’s best friend Danny came and checked in on me every day. When I was 11, I was left alone for three days straight. When I was 12, it was a week. When I was 13, it was a month. As you could probably tell, I learned quite quickly to be independent. Complied with the fear that my father put into me at a young age, I grew up faster than I should have: by the time I was 15, I felt like I was 30. At first I was sad when she relapsed. Then that sadness turned into futility. That futility quickly turned into anger. So I was quite pissed off when this happened. But I had a paper to write, so I ignored it. But at about 7:30 PM or so, I realized that my mother owed me my allowance. So, walking into her room—what a mistake that was—I told her,

“Mom. Mom, wake up. Look, mom, you owe me my allowance.”

“But you’re hocked,” she said in her still drunken stupor. I could smell the vodka still on her breath. “You didn’t take that game back to…to Blockbuster.”

“But mom, that was because YOU didn’t take it back when you told me you would.” Which was the honest to God truth. She had the game in her bag, for chrissakes.

She paused, swaying back and forth a bit (man, she was REALLY drunk). Then she replied with, “But you’re still hocked.”

As you might realize, it was like talking to a brick wall. This went back and forth for a good fifteen minutes as I argued with her why I should have been paid. But she didn’t listen to me. Eventually, this turned to shouting from my end. And this shouting turned to outright screaming. Then my mom did the unthinkable: she went to call my father. Now, I didn’t want this to happen for two reasons. The less important being that I didn’t want my father to know that I was fighting verbally with my mother. But most importantly, I didn’t want him to know that she was drunk. I thought that my father, being the vindictive bastard that he is, would have cut off the child support and basically put us on the streets if he found out that she was drinking again, all under the guise that she “wasn’t taking care of me”. Actually, if he knew half of what had happened to me because of my mother, he probably would have done it, too. Anyway, I snatched the phone from my mother (I nearly had to wrestle her for it) and disconnected it, putting the phone cord in my pocket. Then she went for the portable phone in the kitchen, so I smashed it off the wall and yanked out the cord from the phonejack there, too.

That was when she went to the front door and screamed for the neighbors to call the police. I told our downstairs neighbors not to, but of course they did anyway. I don’t blame them for doing that: how could they have known what was really going on? Within about fifteen minutes of that happening, the police came, just as I had reconnected the phone and called my step-mother and begged for her to come get me—by this time I was in tears, too. The police came in, asking my mom what she wanted to do. From the kitchen I could hear her scream, “Arrest him! Arrest him!” and the police ask, “Are you SURE you want to do that?”

So I was arrested. I spent the night in jail, and had to go to court the next day. Oddly enough, when I was awaiting to go to court, I had a pretty good time chatting it up with the other criminals in the holding cell. After all, we were all there for something, right? Might as well do something pass the time. I was let go on an I-bond and told to report to court a few months later. While it was all a pretty shitty, that wasn’t what made this the worst time of my life. No, it was because now I would have to live with my dad. Now not only did I have to commute so far to school (he lived in Chicago, which is about five to ten miles away from Niles West—using public transportation, I would have to get up at five in the morning and commute about an hour to school every day), but I had to deal with his bipolar anger mood swings. I had to deal with the constant degrading of my self-worth. I had to deal with all the shouting matches. I had to deal with my step mother being barely able to keep him under control. I had to deal with all this, and the fact that NO ONE understood what I was going through. That is, no one but Matt Johnson. Other than that, I was pretty much alone in this world. I couldn’t even see my mother, the only one that pretty much kept my sanity intact. I couldn’t even see my freaking friends, since my father wouldn’t let me out of the house unless I was home by 10:00 PM—even on a weekend. Since most of my friends went out and did stuff around that time, that left us no time to socialize. So to put it simply…it was as if I was in a living hell. The bright side of it, I suppose, was that my father never physically abused me—at least anymore. Probably because he knew that I was old enough to fight back and even beat his ass.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, I suppose. It was that year that I was introduced by my now best friend Matt to Gary and all his friends. It was also that time that I started smoking marijuana seriously. While at first it was a nice little thing, it eventually became an escape from the real world, moreso than video games and writing were. To this day I still kinda deal with it, even though I haven’t smoked in about a month to the date of this paragraph. Whoever tells you that marijuana isn’t addictive is lying their ass off. Like ANY drug it’s addictive. While it certainly isn’t as bad as cocaine or nicotine (nicotine being something that I’m still dealing with today as well), it still can be hard for some people to kick it. One of my other friends just got out of rehab for it, in fact. But whenever I would meet with Gary and his friends I would either smoke or drink or both. Thankfully, I don’t socialize with Gary any more and he quit marijuana himself, so the temptation isn’t there as often. But I still get urges to go out and get high every once in awhile.

And now, finally, my Senior year…

Senior year was a blur to me now. While for the most part it was good, there were some things that made me truly sad about that year. It was nowhere near as bad as my Junior year, but still kinda bad. So for the most part, I’ll be ignoring long stretches of time.

The first few months of Senior year were a drag, besides the thespian troupe. But I also began to realize something about the troupe: the main people there didn’t seem to take to me that well. What that asshole told me the year before finally started to ring true: I wasn’t that well-liked. If anything, I felt like I was tolerated. I know for a fact that Dashi hated me, and I wasn’t too sure about what Pam felt like—which were perhaps the two most important people in that troupe. Chris I still got along with, and Nate was always on my side, but Nate unfortunately had gone to Mexico by the end of the first semester and I did not receive his support. Megan was just as much of a bitch as always. Lev was neutral with me, I think. But everyone else was either neutral or despised me. To this day it still kind of hurts me that the only place that I felt in any way accepted did not want me there. I think that it would have made me feel just a bit better if I knew who it was that really didn’t want me there instead of making it public to everyone but myself, but one thing that I also noticed by this time about the troupe was that people liked talking behind other people’s backs. For a lack of a better example, it was a like a group of drama queens who had nothing better to do except gossip. Maybe it was because I was so weird a person. Maybe it was because I was so new to the troupe. Maybe some people just had problems with how I looked. Whatever the reason was, it was painful to be around them, yet at the same time it was my only real release from the pains of life. It was like my whole life had suddenly gone bipolar—not like I was already.

One of the worst nights of my life was the cast party after we did the play Pirates of Penzance, which was my first major role (I played the Police Sergeant, who had a singing role—I had gone to a voice coach once I received the role and had gotten a lot better). The show itself was arduous at first and we didn’t have all our lines memorized until two days before the show opened to the public, but we still had a blast toward the end, especially when we started getting creative and actually having fun with it. Maybe it was hard for them because we had a new drama teacher—they all hated Ms. Dabelow, even though I thought she was okay.

Anyway, the night of the cast party I had finally worked up the courage to ask Pam out to a date. I had really been eyeing her ever since we had done the kids’ show earlier that year, Patchwork: Stories from Grandma’s Quilt. I don’t know what it was, but her personality, he looks, the way she moved, and the fact that out of nowhere she had the idea that we should “make out” at the end of the show—my guess was to add to the comedy—that attracted me to her. So I asked her out to a date just as she was about to leave, but she turned me down, claiming that she had just gotten out of a bad relationship and wasn’t ready for a new one yet. Was that really it? Or was she just afraid of me? I know that most people in the school were already, so I assumed that to be it. I don’t know the answer to that for sure, but all I wanted to do was get out of there and get smashed. So I called Matt, had him pick me up. We went back to my place with another of his friends, Aton, and power smoked cigarettes while I chugged down a bottle of brandy. I went back to the place where we were having the cast party, completely smashed out of my mind. I fell asleep, and didn’t remember much after that.

Pam and I did not speak to each other for over a week. It was finally after the troupe had met at her house to rehearse for a senior show that I finally confronted her about it, telling her that if the thought of being with me made her uncomfortable, the very least that I wanted to do was be friends. She accepted that at least, telling me that it wasn’t that at all that made her not want to be with me. She still stuck to the story that she had gotten out of a bad relationship and all. I shrugged it off, we hugged on it, and I left.

When prom came around though…good God, that was probably the worst night of my life, topped only by the one where my mother had gotten me arrested. I didn’t have a date, to start off. I was still so scared to approach women that I hadn’t even bothered to ask anyone out to prom. So when I bought tickets to it, I only bought one for myself. Then the night itself. I went with the rest of the troupe, and we arrived at someone’s house. I was told that we would be arriving at the hotel by limo. Pam was dressed in a beautiful, sparkling green dress and she was just…stunning. For those that think that nerdy girls can’t look like beautiful swans, you have no idea what you’re talking about. To me, she looked just like a goddess. I couldn’t help but to be enamored with her the whole night. I even remember telling her, “You look real beautiful, Pam.”

Then we got to the hotel. Everyone stayed together for the most part, and we ate dinner, then we hit the dance floor. Being that I wasn’t that good a dancer, I stayed out for the most part. I remember Pam pulling me on the floor to do some dance that I forget (it was a group dance of some sort), which made the night all the more painful. As I sat down and drank some water that I wished was laced with some kind of alcohol, I felt like such a loser. How could I be the only one there without a date? How could I feel so damned depressed? As you might imagine, I wasn’t the most sociable of people that night. After the prom ended, the troupe and I went walking down Michigan Avenue and eventually the lakefront. I remember Lev’s girlfriend and date asking me, “Why are you so sad?” I told her a lie that my date had ditched me so I wouldn’t look like such a loser. I was a depressed lout that whole night and nothing but a goddamned buzzkill. But it only got worse. You see, she had a date herself. At first, I thought that she was just going on a friendly date, but after prom we all slept over at her house. While everyone was asleep (we were all sleeping in the same room), I let my eyes adjust to the darkness and I saw them (silently) having sex. Or at least I thought that I did.

I went to the bathroom, splashed my face with water. But that didn’t help at all. So I went outside, sat on the porch and cried. Really, really hard. Harder than I did in my entire life. I felt so betrayed, so hurt, so lost. I remember telling myself, “Why does this hurt so much?”. To this day, I do not know why it hurt as much as it did. Could I have really liked her that much? Maybe so. All I know was that by the time the sun had risen, I had fallen asleep on the concrete of the porch, the ground stained with my tears. I woke up at about 7:30 AM, went back inside and went back to sleep. Somehow. I don’t remember exactly what I dreamed about, but it wasn’t a very pretty one. It was a nightmare of some sort. To this day, to only woman that hurt me as much as that was my own mother. But! I also came to the realization that she had found herself a good guy. I’ve forgotten his name—which is a bad thing, because he was one of my supporters, and a great person overall—but he was great for her. After some more time to meditate on it, while I still felt hurt that I had not gotten the chance to get that close to her, I felt happy that she had found someone that I knew would treat her well.

The next major event that happened to me was graduation. I was really happy that day. But, like all days, Dashi had to bring it down for me. I remember walking up to him, with my hand held outwards, and I said, “Hey! Dashi. I just wanted to let you know, man. Congratulations.”

He took one look at my hand, then one look at my face and said, “Whatever.” Then turned around and walked away. I had never been so callously disrespected in my entire life. What did I do to deserve that? But whatever, Dashi was an asshole, and always will be, as far as I’m concerned. I hope that bastard’s rotting in his own self pity somewhere. For how he treated the others around him (his callousness wasn’t just extended to me), he deserves it. Other than that though, that day went great. For the first time I had a smoke with my dad, and even got to see my half-sister Tammi again. Not to mention that my grandparents showed up there too. Afterwards I went to Chilli’s with my grandfather, grandmother and my best friend Matt and we all had some beers with one another. And after that, I went to the Hookah with Matt and we had a great time just smoking some hookah and cigars. It was something of a nice ending to a good night, I suppose.

Oh! I almost forgot. Two more people that I have to give a shoutout to are Ms. Dabelow and Mr. Michael Conroy. If it wasn’t for those two, I would have failed Senior English, and thus be forced to repeat the year. You see, the class was English Rhetoric and Composition—basically learning the English language from the perspective of an ESL student…a really, really advanced ESL student. Which brings me to one of my major complaints: why don’t they actually teach ENGLISH in English class anymore? I know for a fact that if I had gotten some basic instruction in the English language in school, that class wouldn’t have been as much of a problem. Anyway, I digress. While Mr. Conroy met with the class (and me specifically) after school to work on better understanding the language better, Ms. Dabelow allowed me to skip her Theatre Workshop class to go to the library and study—though I admit that some days I just went to the computer lab and played around. But still, if it wasn’t for that I would have been a super senior. And because of that, I’m eternally grateful to them both.

Well. I think that’s all I’m going to write for now, I suppose. If I feel up to it, I’ll chronicle the last two years as well as I can…that is, if I feel that they’re interesting enough to be done.

Peace out, people. I hope that you appreciated this little pouring out of my heart and appreciate the effort. I hope that with this crap off my chest, I can finally start living a better life. Now is not the time for me to harp on the past, and to simply move on with my life. What happened to me happened to me. If there is a God, and he intended for this to happen, he either has one hell of a sense of humor, or he’s got something in store for me. I dunno. But everything has a purpose. What has happened to me has made me into who I am, and I’m oddly grateful for that, I suppose. After all, if only one little thing had gone differently in my life, who knows where I would be? Who knows if I would have met the great people that I have, both in life and online? While if I could go back in time and change things, God knows I would, I also realize that such a thing is impossible. So I just have to move on with my life and make sure that I come out the other side a better person. That’s all there is too it.

Signed,

~ Aaron W. Jordan

Bump for the morning and afternoon people? >_>