The fact I'm functional right now is in itself a miracle, not just in life, but because I'm more than a little high and a little drunk. Lately, I spent alot of time avoiding the people I care about to avoid realizing the emotional shit show I am on the inside. I guess as an introductory blog, I should explain a bit about what makes me, who I am. I grew up in a military town, in a military family.
Well my mama's side from Texas was military. My dad grew up in Colorado, where he was forced to join the Army or go to jail for selling weed back in the 70s. He retired after 21 years and is now an ordained Southern Baptist preacher. Not that those degrees mean shit to me. He actually gives a fuck. It's almost enough to get me back into church.
I know alot of people say their mama was tough, but mine was a beast. She was a Treasurer of a motorcycle club in the 90s, did Judo, covered with tattoos, and can honestly get the award for saying fuck more than any human I know. They divorced when I was 11, and honestly one of my fondest memories of childhood.
Fuck this is getting a long. It's a blog. I'm writing this on my phone and fucked up. Not an easy way to attempt this. I figured it would be good for me. Honestly I didn't even know I had an account until I read the title of my original, first unpublished blog. I saw the date. It was back when I was married, and going to school in Austin with hopes to be a teacher. It said, "Veteran, Father, and Future Educator". Fuck that guy. That me that wrote that, he's more of an asshole than I am, not that I'm not that asshole anymore.
That asshole thought life was grand. I was sent from Iraq for health reasons to Germany, had to be there for almost two months. Most people would go back to the states from there, no, I went back to Iraq, to slowly spiral into worse health issues from the first situation. I know this explanation is vague as fuck, it sounds stupid to me. I wasn't doing secret squirrel shit, I was doing nerd shit in the Army. Electricity happens.
I left the Army, went on to college to make mediocre grades and attempt to remember how math works. During that I met a woman from Michigan, had a kid, got married, and we were living the life of middles class white people in an Austin Suburb. Sounds awful now, but then it sounded amazing.
I grew up around Army Posts, I was in the Army, and I was only exposed to how relationships and love work in relation to a military base. It's a fucking nightmare. When I switched to active duty Army at 19, I told myself I wouldn't get married while I was in the Army. I didn't, but it didn't stop my dumbass from falling in love and getting close a couple times. I told myself that that the Army, which was good for me at the time, was not where I wanted to have a family around.
There I was, not even a week back from Iraq and I met a girl from Detroit, who was nothing like any woman I knew. She had a degree, somewhat quiet, could hit me back with the same level of talking shit, and she was double fisting beers in a Texas dance hall on a Wednesday. I got out of the Army, she got pregnant, my son was born, and later we got married. Problem is, we were both miserable.
She was working long hours at the hospital, I was in school full time, and working a couple different bar jobs at night. She was new at the hospital so she had to work the night shift. So my son was with me most days, except for a couple days a week in Daycare when I had class. She didn't take her full maternity leave, and went back to work. Her leave was paid, but I didn't see the signs then. I gave him his first solid food, I was there for his first words, and the first time he crawled.
She was depressed, she didn't get to see me, or our son, except if we were sleeping. She was living in Texas after never leaving Michigan except to go to Poland, or that theme park in Ohio. It took a toll, more than I realized. She finally opened up and said that she wanted the chance to be home. There was only option for me to make that money, I applied to he a military contractor and went to work in Afghanistan, hiding my way through the physicals and health questions.
So off I went. 25 years old, working at Camp Leatherneck, as a supervisor to guys who left the Marine Corps as NCOs, and me, a guy who left the Army as a Specialist, after losing rank three times, two of those my fault, the other because no one likes a Rat. Let's say things were not going well. Rumor hit that the contract was cutting people, so I applied for other jobs and left Afghanistan to Kuwait. Leave Afghanistan where I slept in a tent half filled with water because of the rainy season, to Kuwait, where I had marble floors in my company given apartment, with a Starbucks on the first floor.
Well while I was off in lala land working 14 hour days six days a week, she left Texas. We talked about her possibly going back to Michigan temporarily if things got hard there, but she left. I told her and I told most people that I got fired from Kuwait for contract cut backs, but I didn't. I got sick. I didn't know what it was, but I basically had a black out, and lost a whole day. Probably the first signs of my brain and nerve damage. Figured it was a bug, problem was it was halfway through a work day, so went I went down, Army doctors saw me, they pulled up scans from Germany because of Iraq. They had to inform my work. My health issues were a breach of contract.
I told her I was being laid off instead of the truth. I felt I failed as a provider or some other overly masculine stereotype. Not that I never told her lies like that. Lying to protect someone's feelings is worse than the truth. My dumbass didn't know better. I lied to her about the hours I worked, so she wouldn't feel guilty, but I couldn't call as often, so it looked like I didn't care, because from what I told her, I should've been able to call more.
So laid off, and suprised she moved and left Texas for home, I found myself leaving Kuwait and moving to Detroit, but not actually Detroit, a suburb. She got an apartment off 19 Mile in Clinton Township. I told people at home, they assumed 8 Mile was the heart of Detroit, and literally not the Warren, Detroit border, when it comes to where Eminem is talking about in that movie.
I hated everything about being in Detroit, but it's not Detroit's fault, she made a life changing decision without me, so I blamed her family, the people there, and grew spite for being there in general. Love made me oblivious to the facts. Yes she left Texas to be close to home when I wasn't there, but she moved to Texas for a Temp travel nurse position for three months, she found a job in Austin, before I started school. She was choosing to live in Texas, and did that without my influence. Yet, when I went off to work overseas, I abandoned her in Texas. I still feel guilty, but not as much. She chose to move here before she knew I existed, she chose a job here, before I moved to Austin to be with her.
I hated it there. It was so cold. Curled up on the couch at night, spending the day to find work, it was one of the lonliest times of my life, and my wife at the time was sleeping in the bedroom. I had a hard time getting consistent work, outside of being a karaoke DJ. I remember her asking me to go back to college to get an engineering degree, instead of my focus on education with math and science in mind.
So where am I going with this, I'm not even sure yet. I feel the need to stop now. Hopefully when I do this again, it won't be some weird drunken rant about my life story, because this shit is abbreviated. It would take me too long to give the part of the story where I had a port in my chest for chemo, and also homeless in Detroit for about 6 months. Although 4 of those months I was in a shelter. Living in a shelter sounds bad, until you lived in an Army barracks. Everything is sad, you all drink too much, and it's too hard to find a way out.
Fuck, I guess if anyone likes the abridged version of just trying to explain where I come from. Look forward to more unedited blog time next time I'm overly intoxicated, a little high, or just having a complete and total breakdown. How do you end a blog? Do I put my name at the bottom like a letter? Is this really a better idea than a podcast?
E N D ......maybe?
