June 16, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 23 – (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons

I really pity the folks who never had a close relationship with one of their grandparents. They missed out on the most profound relationships that truly shapes who you are as an adult. And I understand that not all grandparents are good. Nor are they always present, whether that be by choice or just circumstance. That’s why I feel horrible if I ever do adopt, because they will miss out on my mother. She would have loved the shit out of them like my grandmother did for me.

Much like my husband’s experience, my grandmother was like a third parent. She was also the one who cultivated my love of reading and my want to be a writer. She literally read everything I printed out and gave to her. The best part was when she was honest and gave me critiques while attempting to no be too harsh. Even as I think back on it I can see the struggle on her face, as she chose the appropriate words to describe what she wanted to say without offending me.

My grandmother was the only “grand” I had. At least, one that had any effect on my life. My paternal grandmother was in and out of hospitals when I was a toddler. She was a chain smoking narcist who I was fortunate enough to have never known in my formative years. My paternal grandfather was absent my entire life, much like he was for my father.

One of my earliest memories was when I was almost 3 years old. Some might think this is unbelievable but I vividly remember going to my grandfather’s funeral. I remember the sight of him laying in his casket, with a single red rose. I can recall my father taking me outside to get a drink from the drinking fountain and I asked him, “why is mom crying?” And him telling me in his calm tone that she was sad that her dad, my grandpa, was gone.

Sometimes I thought that I had made all of this up, until my own grandmother had passed. We held her services in the exact same funeral home and it was precisely how I remembered it. There was no doubt that I hadn’t concocted a false memory.

My grandmother’s passing was the first experience of real loss. I had lived a very charmed life never having known such sadness. When I did… I was distraught.

My grandmother had been forced into having a hernia surgery by her two oldest daughters. The medical professional had advised against it, this was her third surgery for the same affliction. However despite his and her own reservations she agreed. The surgery was a success. She left the hospital and came home without any issues. We all thought she was in the clear.

My mother had had a Las Vegas trip planned with my Aunt (her best friend), and she sought my grandmother’s blessing before departing. She gave it and told her to have fun and not worry about her. When my mother got back, my gran complained about feeling unwell. My mother offered to take her to the ER, but she had a scheduled doctor’s appointment the next day. So, she said she would wait until then. There was no sense going when that was just around the corner.

My mom regretted agreeing to that.

At the time I was working overnights at Best Buy, helping them renovate the local store to a format they called “Buzz.” It was a layout that was geared for the shopper who was interested in the “latest and greatest tech.” I worked from 10 P.M. to 7 A.M. for a month, in close proximity to the store manager. (He was a sleeze bucket.) And one of the rules of doing this work was I had to leave my Nokia bar phone in the car or turned off. Over-nights was all about work.

On the morning of my last day of scheduled overnights, I was sitting in the living room having something to eat before I went to bed. My grandmother shuffled in, in her trademark pastel nightgown. She didn’t say anything, and neither did I.

I finished up my quick meal and got up to go to bed.

“Do you want the TV on or off?” was the last thing I ever said to her.

That night we got out a little early, we had successfully recreated the floorplan of the store to be buzzworthy. Everyone agreed to go out to eat at some restaurant as a “celebration.”

As I got to my car, turned my phone on, I immediately got a voicemail from my mom.

She spoke very soft and methodical. She told me to come home right away.

What I can’t understand is why I didn’t bother calling her back. It never crossed my mind. Not even once. Instead I raced across town to find out. As I pulled up to the house, I already knew something was very wrong. There were a bunch of cars taking up any free space and I was forced to double park in the driveway.

Inside everyone gathered together, in the living room, in silence.

My breath caught in my chest, my heart pounded in my ears.

I came to a stop and stood at the end of the counter.

“Grandma is gone,” my mom said.

I spun around and collapsed, cross legged, on the floor, sobbing.

My mother, her voice trembling, told me to come to her. But I couldn’t move.

Once I had composed myself the first person I called was my husband. He didn’t answer, because he was on the road for work and it was his turn to sleep in the cab while his partner drove.

One of the biggest things I regret is that I was so rude to my grandmother in the months before her passing. I was battling with my sexuality and the expectations of my family and faith. Her constant “worrying” about Charlie, my husband, was irritating. I know she knew I was gay and who he was. Her room was right next to mine and our walls were thin. I also have a very loud voice. There wasn’t a night that I didn’t spend at least a couple hours talking to Charlie on the phone. It was how our relationship began.

I did have a dream, shortly after she passed, of her and I spending time in the kitchen of her home in the mountains. She was busy doing something, what I don’t remember, and I felt so sad. I told her that I loved her, missed her, and how I was so sorry that I was mean to her. She just brushed it aside with a smile and let me know that it was okay.

My dad told me, after I shared my dream with him, that she had come to visit me. He was so matter of fact about it.

I chose this song because my grandmother would sing it every once in awhile. Sometimes it was to me, and others it was because she missed my grandfather. He and her had been together since she was 14 years old. They had gone through so much together. He had “saved” her from living in a group home, after her step-mother had given her to be a ward of the state.

They had had seven kids, lost one in war and the other to cancer, and they had travelled back and forth across this country three times, trying to make a living for themselves and their family. It was never explicitly told to me, but I am certain their move from Missouri to California was my grandfather’s attempt to break into the music business. There are demo tapes of him singing different gospel songs in boxes throughout my mom’s home.

This was one of the songs that he would sing to her, unprompted.

This September will be 18 years since she passed. And I still miss her as much as I ever have.

June 13, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 22 – Love for a Child

I just want to preface this next post with a warning. This deals with some sensitive content around “sexual abuse” trauma, and if you are at all uncomfortable with such topics I do ask you to stop reading. I don’t want to trigger anything for anyone. This is, above all, a safe space. So, if you wish to continue I very much appreciate your continued patronage of my ridiculous little life.

This song was from one of those albums that completely defined an entire “era.” This came out right at the time that my husband and I had finally “split.” After 4 years of cheating on him and getting caught, we had decided to break-up. The only caveat being, we would still live together and sleep in the same bed. What we were doing at the time was staging what our future relationship would turn into. For all intents and purposes we were “broken up.” In reality it was an open relationship, but my husband and I were so opposed to that kind of “gay culture” (at the time) that we had to call it something else.

Out of this entire CD, there were 5 songs that just hit specific points in my husband’s and my relationship and some of my past experiences. This song, “Love for a Child” made my husband think of me. It told the tale of how, I’m assuming, a young Jason Mraz grew up just a little too early under the distracted attention of his disengaged parents. The line that specifically spoke to my husband was:

“…and making love at far too young an age
And they never checked to see my grades
What a fool I’d be to start complaining now”

It’s true, I was exposed to sex much, much too young. As a result I became overly sexualized and started to believe that I was only good for what I could offer sexually. I’m certain it is what set the foundation for my sex addiction.

The first time I was sexually abused was by a neighbor kid when I was 3. I have snapshots of what happened with him, but the one thing I remember with clarity, was my mother’s rage from finding me buck naked in the backyard. She had only checked on me because the neighborhood boy left in a hurry and I hadn’t been trailing behind.

“Why are you naked?” She had shrieked.

I remember following her back into the house, staring at her back. Her dress was beige with different colored strips and she was wearing flip flops.

All I can recall was after that event I was no longer allowed to play with that boy. Why, I didn’t know. Being the good kid I was, I followed the order.

It’s weird because that entire neighborhood was rife with kids down to do sexual stuff. When I got older there was a boy who would only ever want to play with me if he wanted “something.” He had a code name for it and I knew, once I heard that phrase, that it was gonna happen. He called it “working bears.” Which… As a gay adult man is funny to me. Bears… come on.

Once this kid got what he wanted he would turn on me. There was one time where this asshole got all of the neighborhood kids to gather on the lawn of the house across the street, and they called me a faggot. That is not an exaggeration.

My saving grace was getting out of that hell hole. My mom’s department was moving from Southern California to the Central Valley, and my mom jumped at the opportunity. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I knew, even at nine years old, that a fresh start has limitless possibilities.

While I wasn’t sexually assaulted by neighborhood kids in our new town, I was teased and bullied. So, progress, right?

I was mainly teased for being fat. I was also weird. I had adopted the mentality really early on that I rather be strange than normal. I would say “thank you” every time someone said, “You’re weird.” The need to conform to what everyone else was doing was something I never believed. That is, unless, it was awesome. (Aka power rangers bitches!) Otherwise I marched to the beat of my own drummer, and usually kids don’t like that.

The internet made making friends way easier. I had a ton of online pals who had similar interests and were also a little kooky. It was in the digital space where I found my community.

What I also found was internet pornography.

The problem with having technologically illiterate parents is that the kid ends up setting all the shit up, and therefore learns how to manipulate the programs to do what they want. Even though my parents had me on the setting for “child safe” content, I knew exactly how to remove any restrictions. And when my hormones were raging during puberty, I would change my browsing capabilities to include adult sites and I would spend HOURS perusing every photograph.

This was all gay pornography, by the way. Never once did I search for images that featured women. Why would I want to pretend when my windows of opportunity were so short? Let’s get right to the good stuff. The only problem is then I would have an identity crisis with post coital clarity. It’s super fucked up to have religious dogma mess up your orgasm. And I firmly believe it affected my ability to even relax in the moment now. I feel this immediate urge to not be where I am. To cleanse myself of my “sins.”

Good lord I am a mess.

Finally after a few years of this ritual I needed to know if I really was “gay.” The only way to do that was to take what I had seen in pictures and put it into practice. At 13 years old I started reaching out to gay men on-line to meet up for sex.

There were only two who were willing.

The first one knew that I was a chubby pre-teen and he still agreed to meet with me. I had arranged to meet him at a Wal-greens around the corner from my house. There he would pick me up and take me back to his place. I logged off, jerked off, and found the terror in my ridiculous plan.

I logged back on and told him that my dad was a cop and I was going to turn him in. He freaked the fuck out on me. I panicked, again, and then told him that wasn’t true. He responded with this filthy e-mail saying how he was going to find me and kill me. I deleted it, but I should have turned that shit into AOL and regret not having done that to this day.

This episode left me frightened from another attempt for a about a year. Then the draw to do something about my desires pushed me to try again.

The second person I spoke to was “Scott.” He was an over the road trucker, in his 40’s, who agreed to meet with me. I lied about my age, but even when I was “honest” about being “16” he still agreed to meet with me. (God, my rage is building.)

Like an idiot I agreed to have him pick me up at midnight at the end of my street. I thought that this was safer than him picking me up at my actual house. (I didn’t want him to know where I lived!)

Like a hooker waiting for her next trick, I waited out on the corner.

Sidenote: no shame to sex workers. I just say that because of the irony of the scene.

Scott pulled up in his beat-up, aquamarine Mazda sedan. I got in and he drove me to his house just a mile down the street from my own. He snuck me in, and as we were on our way to his room someone started to come out into the hall. He yelled at them to get back in their room, to which they immediately did. He ushered me back into his room and we did stuff on his water bed.

Shortly after I met him for the first time, he dropped me off and I walked back home saying, with “absolute certainty,” that I was definitely not gay. I did not enjoy that. He smelled, he was hairy, he was old. I was not into it. With hindsight I know now it’s because I didn’t enjoy it with him. Even though, plot twist, hairy and older are very much my type. Do with that what you will.

While I wasn’t coerced into anything (I sought him out and initiated the conversation) he should not have agreed. Once he learned my age he should have shut that shit down, explained to me that that isn’t appropriate or even legal. He should have known that I was not emotionally or mentally prepared to deal with that choice. But, he did not.

The thing I find so insane is: why would he risk everything to do it? He didn’t know that I wouldn’t have told my parents. I could have turned him in, told them where he lived, or helped with a sting operation through instant message. All of these I should have done, but that would have meant telling the truth to my parents. Instead I kept it to myself to deal.

I look back on this with regret. I took from myself something that should have, at the very least, meant something special. Instead, I treated my first sexual encounter as a case study. One where the results were skewed and that, inevitably, didn’t hold any weight in my future choices.

I wish I could say that I never went back, but I met up with this dude three more times. Each time more repulsive than the last. My “favorite” had to be my first time performing penetrative sex on him in the back of his semi, parked in a Rite-Aid parking lot.

There is this video going around TikTok that states: we are who we would have felt safe with as a kid. The truth in that statement is unreal. These encounters turned me into a grizzly bear when it comes to kids and sex. If I hear someone has been harmed I get very, very angry. I want to do everything in my power to protect them from the mind fuck that comes with it. I want to keep them from ever having to deal with that kind of trauma. The only way that will ever happen is that we must sit down with our youth and have very honest and open conversations. Without them it makes sex this secret, sinister thing. One in which we need to feel shame in. And while that is not always true, there are shameful acts (as depicted above), it should come with no emotional baggage.

June 10, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 21 – Hope For the Future

This time of year always makes me think of the joy, relief, and hope of summer vacation. The whole period, school free, with endless possibilities and no expectations. I would, however, end up doing nothing. I’d spend days in the same set of clothes, never changing or showering once, unless I went swimming. Which, once I got a pool, I never did.

The other day I did an inspection behind my old high school, and at 9 in the morning they were hosting a graduation for the nearest middle school. This single event brought back both of my graduations with the utmost clarity. The feelings attached to these memories made me long for a very different time, far from the one I currently reside.

I went to private Christian schools from pre-k to junior high. My mother was a devout Christian and wanted me to have a faith based education, and she was also under the impression that at a private school you got more 1-on-1 with the teachers. Unlike public schools where, supposedly, you were just another body. Having experienced both, I honestly think that’s a giant load of shit. The only difference between the two was that the students at private schools were much more cruel and judgmental.

I graduated from middle school in 2000. I was on the edge of 15 and thoroughly OBSESSED with Star Wars and anything English. (My AOL username was Britainsboy.) This included a ridiculous cheesy, camp show that was aired on Fox Family about a British co-ed pop group called S Club 7. What that stood for, or even meant, was never explained. Not even once. Did that deter me? No. I watched the shit out of it and couldn’t wait until they released their CD. I remember going to the website to listen to the 25 second clips of each track until I got the disc in hand.

The night after my 8th grade graduation, on the way to state line (because I was obsessed with the hotel Buffalo Bills), I listened to the self-title album the entire drive, lip-syncing each song with Drag Queen accuracy; doing my little shoulder dances and discrete choreography.

I was riding this intense high from graduation. For the first time I had been the center of attention and caused an entire auditorium to erupt in laughter, which for me was insanely addictive. Prior to this I had wanted to be an actor, regardless, but this just solidified it.

During our graduation rehearsal the principle of the junior high portion of my school was fixated on the synchronized seating of each row of graduates. We practiced this little routine multiple times because she wanted it done to perfection. (Truly insane.) The night of the event, it comes time for my row to be called. We all stood in unison, received our fake diplomas and returned to the row where we stood waiting to be seated from her gesture. However as I looked down the row I could tell immediately, we were going to fuck this up. Being my pessimistic self I was curious to see this ride out. What I didn’t expect was that as we sat, both people on either side of me would take a seat and force me up to where I was the only one standing. So as I stood there, a lone reed, I looked out at the audience, energetically waved at them with a huge grin, and said “Hi!” The entire church erupted in laughter.

“Nice save,” the principle whispered into the mic.

I was elated. I had never felt so alive.

Granted the entire event was so miniscule in the grand scheme of things. Yet I could not get over the joy I felt. Everyone afterwards came up to me and commented on how funny it was and I never, ever wanted that to end. The following year I wrote about this event and my English teacher was unimpressed. He gave me a C. He was a dick with a tongue piercing.

All during the following summer I stressed about switching over to high school, and a secular one at that. What would my good little Christian heart do?! As I tend to do in bouts of depression I obsessively watched the movie “Never Been Kissed.” Would I end up just like Josie? Would high school be the worst experience of my life?

As it turned out, high school was just school. There were just more people there. I was used to entire class sizes of, at most, 60 kids. So being in a sea of students was true insanity.

For most of freshman year I was a loner. I didn’t make any friends. I mostly stuck to myself, sitting in the library, writing short stories. The term weirdo is a tad overdramatic, but simultaneously perfect for me. One of my stories was a sympathetic tale about a school shooter, and how he could do such atrocious acts in the name of revenge. Like I said, weirdo.

In sophomore year I finally found a group of like-minded weirdos in theater. The incoming freshman were just as lost as I still was, so I took a couple under my wing and we ended up becoming fast friends.

When it came time to graduate I had fucked up my entire Senior year, gradewise, by being rebellious and spending most of my free time with my future husband. I didn’t even know until literally the day before graduation, if I was going to get my diploma. Luckily my government teacher took pity on me and gave me a D. I was ecstatic. At that time, I don’t think I could have handled that kind of failure.

Since then I have learned that a common theme among most is that “barely squeaking by” graduate.

I graduated high school in 2004, and it genuinely is mind-boggling to think that that was 18 fucking years ago. There are literal children who were born the year I graduated who are doing that very same thing this year. Shoot me. I am too old.

One moment I treasure is that my husband, who was 26 at the time, came to my graduation. He met up with my then best gal-pal, and gossiped the whole time while they waited for my name to be called. Little did he know that my friend had chosen a spot right behind my parents and grandmother. He didn’t learn this little fact until the end, after he and her had been talking shit the entire time.

After graduation, he had to go to work (he was as a truck driver at the time), and my family and lone friend grabbed a bite to eat at Denny’s.

Later that evening a friend of mine (who was later incarcerated for sex with a person under the age of 14) brought over a 6 pack of Smirnoff Ice’s and my graduation gift. He had gone to “Things Remembered” and had my teenage moniker, J-Ro, embossed on a steel flask and zippo lighter. I loved it, being the wannabe alcoholic chain-smoker I was.

The whole night was super lackluster. While all the other kids in my year were going to parties, there I was, seated by my parents pool in the dark, imbibing wannabe liquor drinks with a twist top.

Sometimes I feel like I missed out, but then others, I’m glad I lived a sort of sheltered life. I forget that I have the capacity for heavy duty self-destruction. If I had had more opportunity I would have been an absolute train wreck, but the universe had had other plans for me and gave me the people who would keep me on a more subdued path.

It’s strange how we have these “conclusion” moments in our life that feel like the closing of all we had ever known. Even as I think about this evening, shouldn’t the credits have started to roll to some eclectic track? Instead it was merely a transition to something else. Life goes on. We do other things, better ones. We have defining, life altering moments, that completely change the trajectory of our lives. High school is merely an obstacle we must face to get to other things.

The people who obsess over that period of their life, make me sad. That was a fleeting episode in the mini-series of our lives. One in which, at the end, a new crowd of faces moves in, and you’re forgotten.

May 30, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 20 – Absolutely Zero

Man… it really never occurred to me that those brief revisits of past relationships would cause me so much anxiety. After writing them out, I started to notice my old “bad habits” coming back to haunt me. Specifically overeating. When I sat down and examined my emotions I immediately figured out what was causing this stress. These past events were traumatic, and I still have not dealt with them. I never gave myself the resolution I needed. Instead I just buried them in mental boxes, piled over with other unresolved issues, and put them at the back of my mind. Here I thought these were cute little stories, but boy was I fucking wrong.

The thing that hit me the hardest was how quickly all of these events occurred. In the span of 9 months I came out, dated three men who all dumped me, and then at the end of all that I dove headfirst into another. At no point did I take some time to do some self reflection or healing. Instead I carried my baggage and bullshit into the next. Being dumped in such quick succession had to mess with my self-esteem. No one takes that many emotional punches, so fast, and comes out unscathed.

No wonder I was so fucked up in the beginning of my husband’s and my relationship.

Even now I sit and wonder, what had I done? What did I do wrong in these couplings? Being a mild narcissist I tend to make everything about me, good or bad. Clearly, I was the common factor in all of these situations, and it stands to reason it must be my fault. Which, with some distance, is only half wrong.

Yes, I was at fault here. I was needy, clingy, and desperate. And nothing stinks more than desperation. Even for myself, it is a huge turn off. I can only imagine what it was like for these three emotionally fucked up fools. One wasn’t even out of the closet, the other was buried deep in his and married at the same time, then the other was an alcoholic who was dating a 17 year old. They also contributed to the failure of these relationships. The stench of which was also on their hands. Who deserves more blame is up for deeper introspection. One in which I don’t really want to do.

I just need to box these back up and return them to the past. It’s nice to pull things out every once in awhile to merely glance. Look for too long and one starts to notice the imperfections. I lingered.

The thing I regret (and I know it does no one any good to dwell on past failures) is that I took all of this bullshit into my relationship with the man who would become my husband. Looking back I genuinely messed things up and, as a result, built myself a little hell from my actions. And, seeing how I did this to myself is the worst feeling in the world. One I never want to repeat.

Ultimately… It doesn’t matter. What happened, did. I cannot change them. Instead, after years of self-analysis and journaling, I have learned from my mistakes. And despite attempting to push Charlie away, he is still in my life. So dwelling on the “bad” takes away the beauty that is now. Yeah, it would have been nicer if I had dealt with my baggage before dating someone new, but that’s not really my M.O. I seem to think that one will repair the other. It did not. It will not.

When my husband and I first got together he gave me three CD’s. (Much like what Travis had done.) Two were debut albums, Jason Mraz and Maroon 5, and the other was Coldplay’s “Rush of Blood to the Head.” I loved all three. Equally. And as I do, there were songs on each that have become obsessions at one time or another. The one that spoke the most to me, out of the three, (at this time) was the song I have chosen for this post. It perfectly encapsulates how I felt after all of these damaged relationships. While the fault was handed to me I wish someone else could have taken it. “Pay no more than absolutely zero.”