Times like these

Defining Moments

We watch Bravo, ABC, CBS, or even some late night show with the new hottest Celeb in town going on and on about the one defining moment in their life when they realized, "this is what I want to do..."

Riiiiiiiiight!

We've heard every story from the broken home to the orphan, to the immigrant "making it in America" story. Yet, I cannot find myself wondering if I, The Professor Himself, has a defining moment that lead me down the long and narrow path that I am currently bushwacking. The sad reality is this; I do have that defining moment lurking behind me at every turn. The other sad reality is that I have not, until recently, been able to identify said moment.

I can't sleep very well at night. My job drives me homicidal. My hotel room is never cold enough. Mexican food makes my tummy growl. I can't breath if I sleep on my stomach.

Good God! Am I 90 years old yet? Did I mention I've broken bones 23 times?

Ah, I see. It's not that I suffer from innumerable ailments, it's that I cannot stop thinking. I think too much, all day and all night. I've even heard a couple of you all mention this to me. After commenting on a rather lame news event with a didactic epilogue, I often here these now famous words, "Dave, you think too much." Could it be true? Do I not know when to shut up? Or, is everyone not thinking enough? I tend to believe the latter is, in fact, a farce.

Before I divulge too much into THAT line of thought, allow me to get back on track.

My defining moment, the one point in my life that defines who I am and why I have become the man, yes man, that I am today.

Winter 2000. Shit.

By this point the volcano had been brewing for months, hell, it had been brewing for years. I was living in Connecticut with my newly born baby brother Matthew. My mother and step-father had brought me to this demonic state after Peter (the step-father) had decided to make a jump in his career. He spent nearly 25 years living in Fishkill, NY and working nearby. However, after wedding my mother only a few years prior, he decided to take his newly acquired family out of New York and back to New England.

As you may have heard, I moved around, a lot. This move to CT was not about leaving friends because I was used to that.

Anyways. I found myself at a less desirable high school with 400lb boys threatening to tear my wholesome 150lb body into shreds if my locker door touched theirs again. Yikes! I spoke with friends on the phone every night trying to pick up tips on how to take down a heffer in one move. The consensus was, no chance in hell.

Punch him in the nuts and run.

Move to Russia and take up boxing and hope he doesn't find you. Another one of my more aggressive friends decided to install this tumor-like thought that I, if willing, could end a fight before it started. He taught me the art of handling a knife properly. I learned on buck knives (the type you gut animals with) and he taught me on a butterfly knife (oh yes!). Within a couple weeks I had become rather proficient, as I previously had some experience with this toy.

I dropped the two knives in my bag and carried not just knives to school, but confidence. No longer did Big Ralph's pestering bother me. I knew that if he ever came at me, it would be a wrong move. With my dazzling speed and ninja like movements, I could scare him off without having to use said weaponry.

English class. Junior Year of High School. I corrected the teacher one too many times. On this particular day, I was sent to the nurse for emitting an odor that would kill a herd of longhorns. The end result was food poisoning and expulsion. EXPULSION! WTF! Oh yes. This teacher heard a clinking sound in my bag and took this opportunity to search my bag, illegally.

The knives were found, and on the day of the CT Track and Field State Championships, I was ushered away as the No. 3 high jumper in the state and
nothing more than a shallow criminal. Shit.

I was expelled from school. Locked in the house, and home taught by Adjunct
professors from UCONN. Every day my mother looked at me and shook her head. She
told me daily that I made her sick. Thanks.

In the end, I was learning at a ridiculous rate since I had no boundaries or limits. I wasn't in "a grade," rather I was learning whatever I could absorb. With no kids and no sports to distract me, I focused on school. I read a different book every other day. I penciled out Accounting spreadsheets at blinding speed and even got a little ahead of myself when I was directed to UCONN to take an Accounting Final with college students to assess the effectiveness of my tutor. The results were nothing short of my excessively high standards. I finished the test in 45
minutes and had 2 issues with accrued interest over a progressive loan of 5 years. Boo.

Summer 2000. Now we're back to where we started.

Being the "criminal" that I was, my mother could not stand to look at me. I worked in my room, where my baby brother slept, and never left. I cooked dinner, ate alone, and did the dishes after my step-father and mother went downstairs to relax in the living room. Once a week I was allowed to go for a run, as my mother didn't want me to think "it was a vacation." The plans at the time were to send me to another high school in which I would have to ride my bike because it would teach "me a lesson."

The school was 26 miles away. Yikes again!

I only had to make that trek 3 times. Reason being:

I snapped. I lost it. I was tired of the disrespect and I was ready to make my move. Only a year ago I had reconnected with my father, who had been a ghost in my life since I was 7 years old. I hadn't spoke or seen him in nearly 10 years. I found him in New Hampshire, right where my mother left him. After 10 years, it wasn't as if I was seeing my father for the first time, but meeting a new friend, a highly influential friend.

My father showed me around his town, Portsmouth, NH. He showed all of his work buddies and bar pals his son who he "hadn't seen in 10 years." He kept hugging me and crying everytime I met someone who said "Jeff! He looks just like you!"

Ok, I won't lie, I cried a lot too. It was friking sweet! My pappa-dukes was
back and he was better than ever.

At this point he was a master craftsman and was known around NH as "the guy who could fix anything."

I filled him in on my rather poopy situation at home and how I was in a "snapping mood." He offered me this:

"Your mother raised you and loved you every day of her life. She protected you, clothed you, fed you and taught you to be a gentleman. Do not lose that. Do not forget that. I don't care what she has done or will do, she will always love you as her son."

Great advice from the guy who I hadn't seen in 10 years, seriously. I took this to heart and tried to reconnect to my mother. No sir. When I returned back to CT, I found all of my belongings on the front porch with a brief note: "If you want to leave, be my guest."

Shit.

At this point I had two choices: Ignore the note and go inside OR call my friend from Panama and plead to let me live in her basement. I did the latter. 1 month later I filed a petition to change custody to my father. This has to be done if I wanted to go to High School since I need my parent's signature for everything. He told me that he would allow this under one condition:

"Go back to your NY High School. Graduate. Go to college. Get a good job. Make
yourself a family and never, ever, ever forget how you got there."

He made it clear that he did not want me to sever my relationship with my mother and the rest of my family as I would surely regret it every day of my life.

Winter 2001. The Renaissance.

So I moved back to NY and lived with friends, on couches. I had a lawyer get me back in high school after I was rejected twice (a whole new story). No class in that tiny high school was capable of holding me intellectually, so I took the basics to gradute. I took 7 Regents Exams in 3 days in an attempt to get my Regents Degree in Business (specialized NY High School Diploma).

3 days after taking the last test I got a call from a CT Probate Judge. My mother had countered my petition with an Emancipation Notice. In CT, after the age of 16, the parent can emancipate from the child if a notice is filed by the child first for either a change of custody or an emancipation. I consulted with my friends' families for weeks before returning to CT to see my mother and brother for the first time in 6 months. My mother looked as if she was buying groceries, expressionless. The judge asked for my response and I couldn't help it, I cried. I sucked up the swelling in my throat and spit out the response my mother was waiting for.

Spring 2001. The opportunity.

SUNY New Paltz was the only realistic college I applied to. I had no money to my name and a barrage of medical bills in collection. The college had agreed to give me a second look if I was able to fulfill some requirements: Write an essay about how I came to my situation, every semester. This essay had to be read to the Dean of Studies every semester to determine my ability to mature in a college situation. Obviously I would need full-time housing, which the school did not offer. The other requirement was to hold a job the entire time. If I couldn't balance a job and school, then I wasn't ready for school. Being 17, I had no choice but to agree to the terms if I wanted to go to college. The answer was simple. I joined the NY Air National Guard who would pay for my school and would fulfill the job requirement.

Sweet money!

What type of person would I be today if I just let everything go the way it had? Probably not a good person by any sense of the word. Every semester I called my mother and attempted to apologize, make amends, do whatever it took to get her back in my life, in some form. Every attempt was futile. She wanted nothing to do with me. I couldn't blame her. My brother was only 14 years old when he was sent to a specialized school that could "handle his ADD." This was utter bullshit as she didn't want to deal with it herself, and the reality is, he was too much like my father as a child. My mother hated this about my brother, and distanced herself. I loved my brother. Still do. He is in Florida evading arrest in NH for a warrant on drug possessions. Drugs that he was introduced to at these "specialized" schools. She put him in a situation that could do nothing to better him.

Studying Sociology was my only outlet to understanding why my life was the way it was. How did the people around me affect me? Was my mother who she was because of her surroundings? Fallacies. Sociology does not explain why an individual is who they are, it explains how society is and came to be.

I had to learn this on my own. No professor or friend can teach this to you.

The last 6 years of my life I have spent living on couches, working 2-3 jobs to make rent and food for the summer and winter breaks. I was lucky to visit my father in NH once or twice a year. I ate ramen three times a day, drank water, and hid my past from everyone. I didn't want pity, I didn't want people thinking I was the product of an awkward situation. I wanted to be my own person. I didn't want people attributing my success to some sap ass story about the kid pulling himself out of destitution. It wasn't true. I had friends who gave up their lives for me. Their parents became my extended family. I was lucky as shit. How many people in my situation would have had an opportunity to graduate college, let a lone high school?

2006. The finale.

The final curtain has risen and I have now become a self sustaining man. I hold a full-time career and an apartment. I plan on marrying my girlfriend of nearly 5 years and making every day of our lives the happiest day of her life. I want to raise 2 healthy and happy children who grow to love and learn. I want to spend time with family and friends, make people smile and touch lives. I want people to focus on the foreground not the background. Look at me for who I am, not what I did. The past is the past, it is past.

I'll leave you with my senior quote, never published since I wasn't in a senior yearbook.

"There will come a time when the picking will no longer become picked."

It doesn't send your mind into a whirl, and it's not supposed to. The design is to leave you with one thought and one thought only... and it's probably not what you think... is it? You'll have to find out later.

posted by David Malloy @ 9:50 AM