Looking back

Not surprisingly, like so many folks, I really didn't enjoy my childhood. I've always been a bit weird and definitely misunderstood. Problem is, it wasn't like I was trying to be that way, I just was.

I know a lot of people who work very hard at alienating society. Not me. My thing was just I perceived the world differently. I dressed properly but economically challenged; I watched popular movies and listened to popular music; I enjoyed many of the same events as most people. But I always ended up liking something about all of this that was different than the rest of the people did. Not intentional, again, just how I took it in.

There's no real reason why I do this, I just see things from a different angle than most folks. It makes it hard for me, though, to "play the game" that most people play with each other. For instance, I have no challenge just talking about almost anything; no filters whatsoever. It freaks people out some times that I can so casually talk about fine art and taking a good shit with the same fervor and insight. Over the years, I've learned to temper the verbal output, but my mind still goes to all the dark places it used to.

There have been benefits too. In challenges where normal preconceived notions are not facilitating a solution, I can find a new path because my brain isn't concerned with what people did before me as much as it is focused on the end result and the process of getting there. It was also beneficial in allowing me to get into the music industry early on in my life because I had this weird ability to spot talent. I bought the first Def Leppard album when it came out and had to drive to a billion stores to find a store that had even brought it in. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get any number of people to come see this cool little band I had found called Green Day on their first tour. I sat in the back of a room full of record label folks after listening to a quartet of young women (13/14 year olds) singing songs from their still-being-recorded first album and had the following conversation with their rep that went like this:
Her: So what do you think?
Me: They're good. What's the blonde haired girls name?
Her: Beyonce
Me: Whatever happens with Destiny's Child or not, THAT girl is a star.

So, it's been useful.

But so many times, it sucks.
I miss the "hidden messages" of what people are trying to tell me. I take things too literally. I really love music that makes people go "WTF, mate?". On and on, I find myself still, after 30-something years, like an outsider that is somehow just enough on the inside to kind of get away with doing my thing but being allowed to stick around.

It also meant that my straight and narrow step-dad and I always (have and will) butt heads. His shortsightedness and my oddball dreamer status clashed to the point that these days I will sometimes rebel against things "just because". I will even make detrimental choices just to disappoint him. It's stupid, but I can't help it. When I was younger, I didn't want to make him mad...making him mad just made my life, and my mom's life, a living hell. But as time went on, I also figured out that even when I did things right, he would search for what I did wrong inside of that right and rip me for that. After a while, I stopped stressing about pleasing him, which pissed him off 38 ways from Sunday. If you can't win, lose beautifully, right?

If pushed, I can recall things from when I was a kid, but that stuff doesn't come flowing back nostalgically. It usually is either excavated violently or has to be searched for in the back of my mind. I didn't keep much stuff (mementos, awards, anything) from that time and that continues to this day. I never made a practice of capturing a memento and story from a moment in time, so I don't have the trigger that makes me do it to this day.

Only recently have I developed a sentimentality for the past. I wish I had kept all my ticket stubs. I wish I had taken more pictures of events and people. I wish I had kept a journal.

Instead, it's all up in my head and the only way I can share is to occasionally tell a long winded story or two.

If you're young and reading this, here's my advice: hold on to things from now for later. Don't junk up, but take lots of digital pictures and carefully store away the little things that make you smile now. Someday you'll have kids and new friends and you'll want that ability to show them a part of who you are/who you were with great visual aid.

Or, if you're like me, you'll just hear these words and say "fuck that". ;)