SHun

Foundation

Everyone faces trials and tribulations in life to various degrees. Everyone also deals with them differently. Some people overcome them quickly and easily. Some carry around the pain for a long, long time; yet they are able to appear content and in control. Then there are those like me. The outcasts, the infected, the derelicts, rejects, and the dregs of society. The ones who have lost their souls in the aftermath of devastation and destruction. This is my tragedy.

August 27, 1980. Brockton Hospital. Brockton, Massachusetts. A healthy baby boy brought into this world. The gift of life. A blessing to a young couple and lost. A solid family for support. My parents were young when they had me. Just 19 and 20 years old. At the time my father was an???And my mother was a??? Both were hard-working individuals who gave me love and encouragement in their special ways. Their marriage didn't last though. For reasons irrelevant to the story, they divorced when I was three-ish or four-ish. Because I was so young, I don't think I ever truly understood separation or blamed myself for theirs, not until I was older anyway. Nor did I think anything unusual about it either. I actually thought that that was the norm. After the divorce I resided with my mother full-time. Because my mother went to school and work full time, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My father graduated from a technical school and began working contract jobs in the IT field between California and Boston. When my father was in Boston I would see him frequently. While he was in California, I would fly out to see him during the summer breaks and any other school year vacations, or he would come back and see me and the big holidays. Regardless where he was though, he would always call me at least once a week. Every week. Always. I blame my parents for nothing. I love them both.
Because I spent so much time with my grandparents, we had a very close relationship. Both my dad's parents and my mother's parents lived just a block away. Whenever I wanted I would just ride my bike to grandma and grandpa's house. Their door was always open, was always stocked with you who is. Then I was back to Nana's and Papa's for dinner, and Nana's famous rice and beans. To this day, I think it's my favorite food in the world. I had the best of both worlds. Life wasn't so bad.
Money was always very tight for my mother in the beginning. We struggled, but I always had everything I needed. For lunches at school, I would brownbag it every day. My lunch consisted of: a peanut butter and jelly or fluff sandwich, a juice box, and a Little Debbie dessert. But with dessert, instead of getting both of the snacks in the package, I would only get one so once that it could last two days. We also had macaroni and cheese a lot. To this day, I love macaroni and cheese. Ten boxes for a dollar. Even as frugal as my mother was, she would splurge when she could. When we went grocery shopping, we would go to the salad bar and make our own salads for dinner. The salads were priced according to weight and she always cautioned me to only take what I would eat. She always said to go easy on the dressing. Every time I made a salad I always took more than I could handle and loaded my container with thick, heavy dressing. Every time. I got home I took a few bites and decided it was no good because of too much traction. My mother got so mad at me for being careless and wasteful but she never deprive me of the opportunity to try again. Not even back then could I exhibit moderation. Another indulgence she would treat me to was Dairy Queen. Once a week, if I was good, we would go for an ice cream. I would get a vanilla ice cream with cherry dip. That's still my favorite. More times than not I would end up spilling the ice cream in her car. She would get upset for my carelessness, again. When you don't have much, you try to take care of and appreciate what you do have. Again, rather than depriving me the opportunity, she finally got smart enough to have a seat at the restaurant. Outside. No more spills, in the car anyway. I close, don't even get me started on clothes and my mother.
There was the extracurricular activities I participated in also. My mother and I both studied martial arts. This was something that was not in the Cecily, but she found a way to budget for us to afford lessons. I studied martial arts for years. Martial arts instilled strength, discipline, and confidence in me. It was also a bonding activity we both enjoy and participated together in. I also played floor hockey, baseball, and football growing up. All of which cost money that could've been spared. My mother would sacrifice anything for me. She always has. She always will.
Religion was not a spiritual staple of my life, it was more of a principal of tradition. I was raised Catholic and went through all the faces. Baptism, communion, CCD classes, confirmation. In my early years, for a few years, I also served as an altar boy. This wasn't a Traumatic experience. I was never molested. By a priest anyway. With all the foundation for Faith wait up on me, and never became a reliable source of support or way of life. If there was a God watching over me, where was he when I needed protection? Where was he when I needed salvation? Do I still feel this way? More on that later.
Making friends wasn't difficult when I was younger. There's a certain sense and a lack of inhibition that comes with being a child. I was what they called the latchkey kid. After school I would walk to Nana and Papas' house and look after myself for a few hours until my grandparents or Auntie Rose got home. I went to school on the other side of town near their house because of my mother's long hours and school schedule. Plus, it was just a nicer neighborhood with a better school. My mother did that for me. As soon as I got home I would get my bicycle and be off. The neighborhood was my jungle. I roamed around aimlessly exploring and educating. I was free. I was a king. No restrictions, no boundaries. I was right around for hours stocking from one friend's house to the others. Then I'd be off by myself. Then I find somewhere else to go. I would stop by where the high schoolers played and got in on pick-up games of hockey, or football, for baseball, or basketball, or with whatever else they were doing because I wanted to be a part of. Then I'd be off on the next adventure. Until the street lights came on, or when I forgot to head home because I was having too much fun and the echo of my name covered the neighborhood. I was back to my castle for dinner in the back and the rest of my enjoyable childhood nights. At that house anyway. At that house always.
As extroverted as I could be, I just as much enjoyed isolation. At night after curfew or when the weather was bad, I would play video games or watch TV by myself for hours and hours. My imagination was pretty vivid as a kid, from the best of my recollection.
Looking back I wasn't as reserved and self-conscious as I should have been. Considering I took speech classes for an embarrassing lisp. Considering there is no outstanding physical attributes I can claim. Considering I was a rather chubby and ugly kid that tried to overcompensate with an overzealous yet underprivileged sense of style and materialism. Considering I came from a broken marriage or broken home or even if that's an applicable term. And considering the most damaging was the years of continuous Melissa station I suffered at the hands of my aunts' husband. That's all will say about that. There will be no more on that later.
Speaking of aunts, I love my aunt Rose. She was the one that encouraged me to be a lawyer. I could've been a lawyer. She was fun, pretty, and popular. Her friends were gorgeous and her boyfriends were cool. I would hang out with her boyfriends and idolized a few. We would talk about girls, drive fast, smoke, and just be cool. It made me feel older. It made me feel accepted. It made me feel like I wasn't me. And when you don't like being you, being not you is...better.
The first time we moved away from Brockton, I'd just finished fourth grade. My mother and I went out to California. She transferred her government job to another facility, and brought me closer to my father. Sacrifice. Unknowingly, this also took me away from the abuse I was suffering. But it also made me the new kid in a very, very different environment than what I was used to. This transition was short-lived. My mother hated her new job, and I suspect was having a hard time financially in the ultra-extravagant lifestyle of Orange County. This was not her style. Why should she pay for it? And, socially I think she felt very alone. Of course because of me, she was never been able to have a social life. Sacrifice. Ten months after I completed fifth grade, she transferred her job again to be closer to home. We ended up in West Haven, Connecticut.
Connecticut was close enough to Massachusetts where we could drive up for the weekend once or twice a month, but was still a different area, where you could transfer jobs without going back to the same hospital. I assumed she liked it. She's still there. I got settled in and started sixth grade. I also started finding the person that I would eventually mold into.