Where everything I'd dreamed of, worked for, been told wouldn't happen would finally come to fruition.
After previous decades of being knocked down, beat up, written off and having to grind through the stark, cold reality of just how cruel and unfair life can be, no matter what I tried to do to change it, this was when it would finally reach a point where it became fair for me.
Well...everything did change for me in ways I could've even comprehended at this point in 2009. But at I sit here in on the doorstep of 2020, it's impossible for me to ignore the inescapable truth that it sure as hell wasn't for the better.
Rolling into 2010, I was less than six months from finally completing my dream of getting my college education - something I'd already had to put off for more than a decade to that point thanks to all the shit I had to navigate through in the late 90's. While it may not seem like much, the magnitude of reaching the finish line was in no way lost on me, either.
It meant that not only could I start to chase the other dreams I had as far as becoming a journalist and being part of a world I'd always wanted to experience. I saw it as finally having the means to take care of myself, my wife and the children she'd put off having so I could see my goal all the way through.
I'd absorbed so much knowledge and had worked my ass off while also carrying three jobs to help keep the bills paid, that by the time I hit graduation, I don't think I'd ever felt more learned, more confident and for the first time in I don't know how long...more optimistic of what the rest of the decade would bring.
Then came 2011, the Breakdown...and the complete implosion of my entire world.
There's truth in the cliche that nothing in the world that can fully prepare you for the moment you become a parent. Secondary to that, there's absolutely nothing that can prepare you for the second your mind breaks.
In less than 36 hours, I went from being a brand new father, with dozens of people having spent months patting me on the back and telling me "You're going to be a great dad!" to an utterly lost, despondent wreck that no one wanted anything to do with...because that's what happens after the sudden onset of severe Mental Illness.
All that sycophantic support seemingly vanished in a nanosecond. My position as my son's father was taken from me within a week of his being born. Before 2011 was over, the only long-term relationship I'd ever had, spanning sixteen years, was also done. Having lived through my mother's two divorces when I was a kid, I'd always told myself that history wasn't going to repeat itself with me. That I wasn't going to be like my father or first stepfather. That I was going to do it right.
Except I'd spent that entire relationship being completely (and I concede, willfully so) oblivious that the person I'd made those promises to turned out to be unbelievably toxic to me on multiple levels. It wasn't until we were clear of each other that I began to finally see the extent of what I'd been ignoring and the full impact it had on me.
Editorial Note: For the record, that doesn't exonerate my own issues or mistakes I made while we were still married. Was I a perfect husband? No I wasn't. But this I know and I stand by it until the day I die. I did the best I could with everything I had. I took those promises I made seriously and never broke them. The same cannot be said on the other side of the equation.
The shock of spending half your life with someone and suddenly finding yourself alone again is both profound and completely terrifying, to say the least. The only thing I could do, as much as there were times I very much didn't want to, was to pick myself and try to find a way to move forward again. By 2012, I'd made some progress in my career, but had also been broadsided by the reality check that everything I'd been trying to outlive and overcome from my childhood was going to still keep me from where I ultimately wanted to go.
A golden opportunity that could've at last put me on an upward trajectory was taken away at the last possible second for no other reason than base and unabashed discrimination, and there was nothing I could do to change it. The jobs I'd grinded away at both during and after college, paying my dues and making no end of sacrifices for in exchange for similar opportunities ended up undercutting me as well. Those chances going to people who possessed more ambition but a fraction of my work ethic, while I was left totally high and dry.
If there was a bright spot in that part of my life, though, it came when I wasn't expecting it. For the first time in I don't know how long, I'd come across someone who despite being so out of my league in so many respects, was someone I found utterly captivating and interesting. And for reasons I struggled greatly with, she seemed interested in me
I won't lie...I was equal parts hopelessly smitten and scared beyond belief. The last thing I wanted was to find a way to fuck up this chance to maybe be with someone who'd gone from being a friend I cared about into someone I genuinely loved.
Well, fuck it up, I did. More than I could've possibly imagined and the fallout utterly shattered my heart. Now she's nothing more than a Ghost - an intrusive thought that I don't think will ever stop haunting me.
At that point, I was so lost that I didn't know if there was anyone or anything that was going to keep me from just sinking into the abyss of Depression, guilt, shame, self-loathing and outright despair I felt myself being pulled into. Most nights I went to bed not wanting to wake up, provided I managed to sleep at all, while my days were spent trying like hell to not give into the relentless voice in my head that spent all hours trying to convince me that death was the only way out.
Being so desperate to get away from all the reminders of everything and everyone I'd lost, I took the wholly unexpected lifeline that was thrown to me from central Washington and spent the middle of the decade in the geographic middle of nowhere. At the time, being surrounded by nothing but high desert for hundreds of square miles and living in a town so small it was hard to find on most maps, I figured it was as good a place as I'd ever find to go through whatever detox I needed.
For the first year or so, the isolation helped. By 2016, though, with the company who hired me seemingly on the verge of collapse, I decided that 25 years spent in the Pacific Northwest was more than enough. It was time for me to go to the one place I felt I could hopefully rebuild my life and could reconnect me with the person I'd been once upon a time.
It was time to go Home. Except when I got back to New England, it became clear pretty quick that it wasn't the same home I'd left.
The family I wanted to reconnect with had become so dysfunctional, petty, selfish and sociopathic that I wanted nothing more to do with them and the feeling was all too mutual. It was another stroke of luck, though, that I managed to get onto the staff at the Boston Herald for a temp-to-hire position, provided I worked my ass off to show them I was worth sticking around.
Oh...I was also going to have to live out of my car for close to a year while they made their minds up on that.
As much as I thought having to exist in an 8x8 prison cell as a teenager surrounded by a couple hundred men who could've killed me without a thought was bad enough, even that didn't prepare me for being homeless. I thought I knew heat or cold, then tried to sleep every night curled up in the back of my jeep, enveloped in a cocoon of blankets and a sleeping bag or sweating buckets every night, using an old milk jug for a makeshift urinal and subsisting on fast food, cheap snacks, YMCA showers and gallons of Starbucks chai and hot cocoa in exchange for free Wi-Fi access.
It was only after I went back to Portland to watch my foster dad be buried that the Herald told me I'd been wasting my time, and I once again had no idea what the hell I was going to do. It was on a whim that I contacted some old friends who'd relocated from Portland to Cleveland and asked if I could spend Christmas with them that I found a way out.
Not only did they let me come out, but they also didn't want me to leave again after the holidays were over. I did go back to New England and tried to make the best of the situation again, but I don't think I lasted a full week before I made that 11-hour, 900-mile drive again back to Ohio. I spent much of 2017 and 2018 living in the corner of their basement, sleeping on a futon and trying to make the best of a truly shitty job that I ultimately quit after I realized my boss was an utter pillock and it wasn't going to get any better while he was still there.
But I was safe and despite the occasional hiccup, we all got along. Days were spent playing games and making the best of otherwise dreary Walmart grocery runs. Nights were usually spent talking about stuff that often resulted in me laughing, which wasn't something I was all that accustomed to anymore.
And for the first time in I don't know how long, I was able to connect with someone on a relatively affectionate level again. His name was Shadow and he was an incredibly derpy in the way all great cats are, but after spending years completely alone and having shunned pretty much all social contact with humans at that point, his decision to come keep me company was a level of emotional rehab I didn't realize I needed at the time.
The only reason why I'm not still there is because about six months ago, I got a call from one of the almost 1,000 jobs I'd applied to between 2014 and 2019, asking me if I wanted to come back to New England and work in media again. So I packed up all my stuff one more time, took another 11-hour drive all the way to central Maine...and here I be with a roof over my head again, food in my cupboards, bills that are paid and a proper bed to sleep in.
Granted, I could've expanded on this a lot more than I did, but it's close enough to a Russian novel as it is. That said, even writing out this semi-abbreviated recap hit so many emotional pegs that in no way can I ignore what I'm feeling now that I've got it out...
I don't know how the hell I managed to survive this decade. I honestly don't.
Going through both the Breakdown and then the divorce in less than six months was more than enough to make me feel like I was done. Piling on top of that the emotional sledgehammer blows of having a career, potential relationships, friendships all disintegrate in the ensuing wake, of having to bounce around from one spot to another in the hopes of finding any measure of stability...and all without anywhere near the reservoirs of self-confidence or self-worth I had when the decade started...?
By all accounts, I shouldn't have made it to 2015, to say nothing of 2020.
I suppose I should see that as a victory on some level...but I have to admit that it's hard to do so. Instead, it's a struggle not to look at it just a seemingly endless streak of failure, disappointment, rejection, heartache, loss, madness, self-loathing and pain.
The person writing this is a much different me than I was when this decade started. Maybe, had my luck been different and even one of those things not happened, I might not have changed so much. Also, had I been able to get into therapy sooner, rather than six months before the decade ended, I would've been able to handle it all better.
But that, like everything else I wanted for myself in the 2010s, didn't happen and I find it hard not to put the majority of the blame for all of it on my back.
After all, they were my decisions, my choices, my actions, inaction, reactions, feelings, wants, desires, interests, expectations, hopes, ambitions and most importantly, my mistakes and my failures that got me to this point...and they cost me everything and pretty much everyone I cared about.
Where I go from here, I have no idea anymore. All I know is that with everything I went through in the past ten years, if I want to avoid repeating anything close to it again then I have to be willing to overhaul nearly every aspect of my life...and I'm going to have to do it alone for a while.
Before the year is out, I'm shutting down and/or turning off all my social media connections. The reason for this is threefold:
1.) Social media has become so emotionally toxic for me that it's no longer healthy to be part of it as all it does is enhance the negative feelings of envy, bitterness, guilt, shame and anger that I've been struggling with this whole time.
2.) My ability to honestly express myself when I'm trying to work through those bouts of negativity, or even those rare moments where I'm feeling as close to good as I can these days, has been countered with the seemingly constant blanket response of "Shut up. No one wants to hear it and no one cares anymore, so just go away."
3.) One of my biggest problems for the majority of my life has been the need for external validation from other people in order for me to feel any measure of self-esteem or self-worth, and in that respect, social media is no different than giving someone who's trying to kick addiction a free heroin shot every hour on the hour.
Does that mean I'm going to drop off the world entirely? No, it doesn't. If you need to get a hold of me, I'll be around. I just won't be online anymore, so you're going to have to work a little harder to find me.
My biological father always liked to remind me, If you ever get yourself in trouble, it's on you and you alone to get your ass out of it. Considering he didn't live to see 2020 either and died a broke, bitter and lonely old man exactly a year ago, it's not lost on me that if I don't do something about this now, I'm going to likely end up the exact same way.
I swore to myself when I was barely 10 years-old that I would never be like my dad. The problem with that is doing so came at the expense of me not figuring out who I am.
I'm at the unignorable point now where I have far more days behind me than ahead, so it's way past time I get that straightened out.
See you on the other side. Tally Ho.
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