So thanks to the therapist for telling me I should get back to doing things I loved in high school to ‘heal’ some misguided issues I’ve had for years. For instance, I almost went to university for a degree in ‘English and Writing’ because of how much I loved the power of the written word. They aint wrong. I still love writing even though I can’t spell worth shit. So ya I stopped writing. For a while. Decade and a half? but mostly because I have always been worried about my writing skills and or the creativeness (and lack there of). How could I hold my own to the satirical heavy weights of David Sedaris, George Saunders, or ‘insert another satirical short story writer name here’. The literal definition of out of my league. But the therapist was right about it a little. I have been deeply missing writing and story telling that comes along with the absolute absurdity that is this world around us. And with Jnco jeans now coming back in fashion I cant help but think that maybe a Blog is soon to follow. That reminds me, self note, reboot my account on Myspace.
but here it is. A place for me to hopefully get my writings down. free of grammatical worries; proper punctuation; and sentence structure, fuck all that, buy gold and bury water, this is the wild west mother fucker. And thankfully also in an area I know others wont try to see or read because said individual may need a few thousand for the therapy needed once vacationing at the sandy shores of my brain for even an hour.
so. Per request of my own continual development, here is the space for me to finally get some of my daily thoughts down on paper not structured to only a few hundred characters. Fuck twitter or x or whatever that cesspool of virgins mad at the world for some reason or another. a place for stories that have eluded me in the past, or have haunted me but also given me strength. a casual op-ed with no intention to upset or anger others with malice or forethought. some fun stories to re-read on the shitter or while waiting for that person to come back from the shitter. They grabbed their coat and purse saying they had a quick phone call, its okay, order another drink and remind yourself to not tell them how your brain works in the first 20 minutes of the date. Bad nic. bad
The most peculiar thing happens when you tell people you don’t want children. First their head tilts slightly to the side. You know, the way puppy dogs do when they see something that interests them but they are not sure what it is exactly is they are looking at. The next phrase out of their mouth tends to be something along the lines of “are you not able to” or “you mean right now?” or even “that’s a joke, right?” or, and this one has been fairly new given my relationship status “do you not love our daughter?”
The idea that love can be predicated on having a child with another person astounds me, especially when coming from individuals who have at that moment been divorced for longer than they were together with their partner. Sadly though, a part of me can understand some of these peoples points of view when stating this. Having a child with another individual is the most base action of being a human being. Continuing the legacy by mixing genetic code. But again, when it comes from certian people, once you add the factor of your divorce from the individual you shared children with, then can you really use the argument of not loving the other by not having children with them?
I know that I am not 100% on not having a child. I would say I am around 97% sure. And its not that I don’t think that I couldn’t give that child or kid a father that would be proud and loving of them. I know that part I could accomplish i That to me is the easy part. The hard part is everything else around right now. I know its a little cheap to be blaming the world, but I have not felt confident about this planet since I was in the 8th grade. Match that up with the fact I have never really wanted children and that’s how one gets close to the 97% I am at. A lot that is not in my control would have to change for there to be a chance of me changing my mind. Let alone reversing the visectomy I got.
I will say that my siblings having multiple children, my brother and sister haveing just had their second child each, entering our gorwing and loving families and relationships, makes this lifestyle of mine all that much easier. I can be the fun uncle. The one who helps provide for the children already in my life. But for some strange reason, still, a lot of people find it hard to understand. How could I not want a house full of little ones running around?
By now I have had a long time of answering most of peoples questions. Especially those who are driven about changing my mind. Which is interesting because it tends to come from those who:
A) Have not done all that great of a job raising their current children they have.
B) Do not have any children.
C) Whose relationships with their family, partner, and or others, are shaky/strained, at best.
And I think that it has taken me a while to learn that maybe the reason they are so driven to get me to have a child is because they themselves have this idea of what a child does. That this mythical idea of a perfect child, relationship with child, or want to have raised a great child, is what pushes them still.
And I think only now am I starting to realize that when I tell someone that I do not plan on having a child, most will do their best to turn the conversation into a form of an argument, something I do enjoy, rather than just a conversation. But that too is starting to change.
I recently had this discussion with a person I know who is raising their child, in a loving relationship, and when I told them I was not wanting children they said to me, “That’s sad, I think you would make a great dad, you have a lot to share. But I get it, not everyone wants a kid.”
And that was the end of the discussion. He did not need to pry as to why, or have to understand every point I was trying to make, or say to me that I will regret this decision for life. But heard me fully, and simply understood.
I am happy though that I am starting to realize things in my life are not needing to be arguments to be won or lost. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart. I think its maybe our best action as a human, to try and change someone’s mind when it is not agreeable with our own. But somehow there is a shift that when your life is on track and you are feeling complete, the want to change a persons mind softens and the need falls by the way side. You can simply say you get them and move on.
So who knows. Maybe in 10 years from now things will have changed enough children can be a thing in my life. Or that having a child while may not be my life goal may be my partners in lifes goal. And that does not mean I should not be a part of it some way. Espeically considering I would do everything to help raise that child.
I guess I just hope that if anyone ends up reading this and too wonders if its okay to not want children because of any reason that I say it is. A total random stranger who you do not know. But a stranger who can say they get it. They understand where you may be in your mind. That you are not alone and that, what can at times feel like an endless barrage of individuals hounding you over your choice may never stop. But maybe just listen to them and do with that what you want. Not feel as thought it is an attack to you thought it may feel like it. But also if you are stead fast to not fall to those who want to argue with you about it. To instead understand their motives are simply different.
*while writting this my brother had is second child. I met my new nephew and my brother nammed him after my. First and middle name. His chidlren now have the names of him and me. Brothers who will grow up with brothers. It is the deepest honor I have and feel like I will ever receive.
I’ve always loved the word ‘snitches’. Not the act though. A younger me, and I guess still a little bit of me now, was and is a fan of Dr Suess. His imagination and creation of such quirky strange characters. All of them too, from animals to humans, his creations covering his pages in what I can only described as the rainbow explosion of pastel colors. Here though my brain sees the word snitches of course goes to the oh so similar ‘Sneetches”, which by all accounts also suck in a similar way snitches do. Go back and give it a read if its been a minute and you too will agree, they surly are not the well mannered and accepting society of the Whos from Whoseville.
Small tangent aside, I have realized that a luxury I have always wanted and in some small parts continue to work for, is the luxury of having a personal driver. No I don’t care for a fancy car or mansion that would take a small army to keep clean and dusted, but the idea of never having to drive again is so tantalizing, its infectious in a certain way and just achievable enough that I think I may one day get that opportunity.
Obtaining a drivers license in Colorado was considered the ultimate goal of any 16 year old. And dammit if within a short while of obtaining that goal did I not grow a deep hatred for driving. Sure, at the age of 15 when I was allowed my permit I couldn’t get enough of the stuff, signing up for the littlest tasks of taking my parents to the grocery store so as to get 20 min more added to my hour log sheet. The idea of total freedom and ability to get out and visit friends that wouldn’t require me to ride my bike for about an hour was a dream I knew that was within reach. Add on top of that the fact girls were seeming to have interests in me, it was something I would smile at every day I got closer to my 16th birthday.
I don’t recall actually passing my drivers test, I just remember that I was the first one in my siblings to pass it on the first go and I rubbed that in their faces for days. Temporary licensee in hand though, I asked to borrow the car to grab milk from the store, understanding we probably already had milk, and with the permission from the parents headed out on my own. It took all of about three days for the high of achieving my license to disappear. Maybe I had built it up in my mind so long and with such expectations that when I had finally come to the accomplishment I realized that I deeply disliked it. I disliked the outrageously, almost comically long suburban stop lights, looking ahead at the many, many rows of lights changing from green to red; I hated cars that would drive far too aggressive for the suburbs or even far too defensively going 10 or even 15 miles an hour UNDER the speed limit; I hated the responsibility that it takes to sit behind a 4000 pound vehicle while wildlife could run out at any moment; and most of all, the bane of driving, I hated the traffic. And this was 2010 Colorado traffic. When a person living here could still drive from Denver to Summit County in 50 minutes.
A friend I had made life guarding at a country club had a personal driver. His father worked as, well as he put it, ‘something for Lockheed Martin’. Which means just two things; 1. that his family had money; 2. It definitely came from military contract.
A few times after work I would chain my bike up outside the country club, hop in the car with my friend and his driver would be up front, playing the Eagles greatest hits CD as we headed off to his place. Sure my friend had all the Colorado toys. A huge house, nice cars, a speed boat and fishing boat, 2 jet skies, and I think his father mentioned that he and his few friends split a private jet out at the Broomfield airfield. But when it came to what really surprised me about their wealth, it was not their toys, but that they had a private driver. That to me was wealth understood.
One time on the way to his house my friend openly was discussing a party he went to that weekend where he drank his ass off, did some ecstasy, and made out with his crush, all of which was said in front of the driver. When I pointed at the driver as secretly as a teen could, my friend let me know that the driver did not care about this stuff, the driver chiming in almost appropriately saying his job was to not get my friend in trouble but to drive the family when they needed to go somewhere, and to do it safely. Later that night as the driver took me back to my bike, we unlocked it, loaded it up in his car, and then he proceeded to drop me off at home. This, this was a luxury I did not know really existed 12 hours earlier for the elite, yet immediately felt that it was highly underestimated. I guess its because I had always seen people with loads of money driving themselves in whatever hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of vehicles they had. When do you ever read a headline that goes “Brad Pitts personal driver arrested on DUI charge on way home from ‘Feed Africa’ Gala.”
What finally hammered the last nail in my coffin for hating driving was only 4 months into my new license. It was summer time and I was at my best friends house, spending the warm early June night in his pool. We had rented a river kayak, complete with skirt and paddle from REI (a thing you used to be able to do) and spent hours trying to see if we were any good at recovering. We sat outside switching out, practicing flipping ourselves over in his pool, to see if we had the capability of getting ourselves out from being turned over in water. Our thought was that if we were good enough, we would rent some for the summer and test our metal on the rivers nearby. Exhausting ourselves it was around 1130 at night I started to head home. Just as soon as I was getting in my car my older brother called me and with slurred speech asked if I could pick him and his friend up since they were too drunk to drive. Of course I was not going to let my brother drive so I found out where they were (a shit house party a little out of the way) picked them up, and then headed home. It was now well after midnight. My brother and friend sat in the back of the car, teasing me about my driving skills, asking me to play a CD they had just burned, and all I wanted to do was get home. I jumped on the highway to home as soon as I could. Going honestly 5 miles over the speed limit, I passed over a bridge near Morrison (anyone who has driven that road at night knows how much the police love to hide in a small corner out of sight) when I saw lights appear in my review mirror without a seconds notice. Pulling over the cop came up, asked for my license, and upon providing, he said that I was way out past curfew and grilled me about my actions. I received a curfew and speeding ticket for 540 dollars, and the officer called my house to inform my sleeping parents.
Upon arriving home not 10 minutes later, my parents were already up waiting in the kitchen, single light above their heads turned on, and my drunk brother and friend squeezed by me quickly to head to his room downstairs.
“how dare you be out past curfew”; “What were you thinking”; “Why are you holding swim trunks”; question after question came out their mouths furious with me.
The one that stumped me was “why didn’t you just spend the night at Mitch’s house?” They knew my friend, and knew I had spent the night there on multiple occasions, not understanding my actions to drive home so late. What they didn’t know was that I left early enough to make it home before curfew ended, I just was not expecting the second part of my late arrival. Some might say the most crucial aspect was that I forfeited my opportunity to get home before curfew, so as to pick up their drunk son and friend to avoid them from getting behind the wheel.
Hell yes I too was furious. A part of me imagined dragging my brothers ass upstairs and sit him in the chair while I slide on the other side of the table where my parents sat so I could grill him on it. I wasn’t just upset that I had not only received a ticket for about three weeks worth of work for me, but that I was now also getting in trouble for doing what in my mind was the right thing to do. And I know in that moment I could have simply said, “well I picked up your other son and his friend because both of them are smashed and I didn’t think they should have driven home”. In which case my parents could have gone downstairs at that very moment and found my brother, head in a trashcan as his friend took the toilet, vomiting up the different cheap liquors they had ingested that night. I could have been scot-free and maybe convinced my parents to have him pay for my ticket. I could have snitched.
Sitting in the kitchen, a total of three lights from above on, both parents firing questions at me, wet swim trunks in one hand and a ticket for half a grand in my other, my mind wandered to the moment in the car with my own friend and his driver. How the driver looked in his review mirror at the two of us and with a reassuring smile, stated how he was not there to get anyone in trouble, just make sure everyone was safe during transportation. And the care he showed me when he would drive me back home. Not just dropping me off to the pool so I could grab my bike and ride the twenty minutes home on the dark on curvy mountain roads, but how he took care of me even though I was not a member of my friends family.
“I don’t know I guess I just was tired and wanted to sleep in my bed.”
I thought that was a good enough reason to get my parents off this whole situation but it really just started another litany of scolding’s from “that’s the worst time to drive at night and as a new driver” and or “you could have had maybe his parents drive” and so on and so forth.
I was grounded for 1 month only being allowed to go to work via bike, as my driving privileges were taken away until I was able to pay off my curfew and speeding ticket. There I was at 16, brand new driver, right at the beginning of my first summer with the freedom only a car could provide, trying so hard as to remember why I was so excited to get my license.
And I can’t be too upset. That summer riding my bike was amazing. My love for riding a well built bike was deepened because of it (I was on a fast road bike that was my mothers old college road bike). And honestly that summer of riding my bike planted the seed for me wanting to purchase an expensive bike when I headed off to college, one in which I still own and ride religiously today even after over a decade of owning it. Riding my bike to and from work on those Colorado summer mornings and evenings were as gorgeous and lovely as one could imagine. But I wont lie in that I think it helped solidify a simple conclusion in my brain as well. The conclusion that I hated driving.
*years later my brother at the age of 20 went to a fraternity brothers wedding and had 2 glasses of champagne. On the drive home he was pulled over and received a DWI (Driving While Intoxicated), simply because he had drank alcohol before the age of 21 and was driving. Im not saying he got “his” because it required me to drive him to and from Golden each morning so he could attend summer class at School of Mines, thats a story for another time. I guess simply, if you are ever driving through Morrison Colorado, just know the cops literally have nothing better to do.
Casual Entropy 