Yosemite

I had been in scouts for years when I went to Yosemite Park for the first time. It was a place that I had heard about hundreds of times throughout my life - it's like a requirement if you live in California and enjoy being outdoors to any degree that you go there. But I was probably around 15 by the time that I finally went. And that's not like a, I went when I was a little kid and just don't remember it kind of thing. I legitimately had never been there. It was such a weird thing to the people around me that my dad was even surprised by it.

I remember the drive in to the park was very long - not the drive to get there, but the actual drive from the park entrance down to where we were camping. And I remember looking out the window at it all and just being amazed. There's a reason that Yosemite is such a popular spot in California. It's absolutely gorgeous. Whether you are in the valley, looking up at the trees growing around you and seeing just how massive everything is, or if you are on the top of one of the mountains and looking down and seeing everything that you have been through, Yosemite is stunning. I remember asking my dad how I had never been here before - which was of course responded to with a look and statement of disbelief.

But as we camped out for the night, and I saw the stars through the trees, and I could smell the fresh air and hear the sounds of nature, I realized something. I had been in scouts for years. Slowly but surely, I had grown to love nature. To love being out there, seeing the sights, experiencing the world through my own senses, rather than those of others. If I had gone to Yosemite much earlier than that, I wouldn't have appreciated it as much as I did when I finally got there.

Now a days it's hard to remember a time that I didn't enjoy being out there. Even if I don't do it that often, there is something oddly freeing about being up on a mountain, sweating and breathing hard, but knowing it was because you pushed yourself all the way up. It's just... natural. Which is my favorite state of being.

And that first time I was in Yosemite, having it all come crashing down on me in such beautiful immensity, was the first time it really hit me. Just how much magic there is in the natural world. And let me tell you something. It's addicting.

Faint

My dog's teeth sunk hard into my hand as he bit me, trying to force his way to the front door where he knew people were about to come in from. It wasn't the first time. It hurt like a bitch, but I knew that I just needed to clean it up and throw a band aid or two on top and power through the pain. Unfortunately the band aids had evidently moved on me, and I had to go on a short hunt to find them. By the time I found them I had had to wash my hand a couple of times because of the blood, and it was becoming evident that something was wrong.

As I was putting the bandages on, struggling to actually open them because of the pain in the one hand as I tried to grip the wrapping, my vision abruptly started to fade. My vision sometimes likes to flip out on me, temporarily disappearing for a few moments after I stand up, and sometimes doing so on a delay, so at first I thought it was that. But it had been much too long since I had last stood up, and the fading lasted much loner than usual. I tried to push through it, but the more it faded, the more it became apparent I needed to get out of the bathroom. I made it to the hallway before my vision was entirely gone, and I tried to blindly stumble my way to the couch, but not being able to see where I was going made me afraid of running into something. All the while, the house cleaners were making their way into the house and preparing to set to work.

When my hand touched wall I knew I had gone too far. I've never been a good judge for distance. I didn't trust myself, and by that point I was literally stumbling, my stomach was weak, and I didn't know if I could do much of anything. I let myself fall into a seated position on the ground, and within moments I heard one of the cleaner's voices asking if I was alright. I considered lying. There wasn't much point by then. My vision started to come back as she rushed to call 911, and finally able to see I finished putting on the bandage. Sitting had helped, so I laid down on the floor, which helped even more.

It took much shorter than I expected for medics to arrive. Perhaps they had been conveniently nearby. I was feeling better already just from laying down, though as it turned out I could barely sit up, much less stand, so it was probably for the best that they came. I found out later I was pale as a ghost for some time after that, though by the time an actual ambulance had arrived I was getting better. But I was still shaking like crazy, and felt dizzy while standing, and my knees were weak. I don't think I would have made it into the ambulance if I hadn't had someone helping me.

I'm still not sure exactly what happened. I'm assuming it was some form of shock, though why it was triggered is unclear. But I do know I'd rather not go through it again.

Leadership

As a leader in boy scouts, knowing that I was in charge of a massive group of boys with a wife range of ages, I knew that I was in for a hard time. I was constantly on edge, always looking over my shoulder to see if anything was going wrong, and I was extremely aware of which boys were the problem children and who they were most likely to picks fights with. This was especially true when I was leading summer camp, because even though it was a smaller group, they were in much more contact with one another, and they were spread around a much larger, more obstructive area.

There was one boy I remember especially well. He was a smaller kid, still pretty new to the troop, and it was apparent that his parents had signed him up with us in the hopes that he would learn to control his temper. Quick note - don't do that. Boy scouts is not the place to learn to control your temper. That is marital arts.

I was speaking with my adult leaders about how the week was going, what was coming up, what kind of things we needed to focus on, when I had this shiver go down my spine. Something was going on - I instinctually knew this. And I was not mistaken. I looked over my shoulder to see this small boy lifting a shovel above his head, face pointed very distinctly at one other boy who I knew he had been growing irritated with. This kid was about to slam a shovel into someone's head.

I muttered a quick "I'll be right back," as I was already throwing myself onto my feet, sprinting as hard as I could at the boy. Fortunately I was not the only one who had seen him, because I was not going to make it to him in time - another boy came up behind him and quickly pulled the shovel from the boys hands. It took him a brief moment to realize what had happened and turn around to try and fight for it, and by then I had made it in time to grab him in a bear hug. The adults were on their way behind me - an issue like this was beyond my ability to take care of.

As the kid changed hands and was lead away, head hanged in shame, I thanked the other boy for acting as he had and asked him if he knew what had happened. Evidently, the kid was very upset that this other scout had been poking holes in the ground. He had been trying to cover the holes, but he was slower at covering them than the other was at making them.

Kids.

Between realities

There was a period of time in which my girlfriend of the time and I would actually fall asleep on my couch, because we didn't feel comfortable moving to my bedroom, but we just felt so comfortable laying down together. I don't sleep well in general, so it was hard to fight off the feeling of drowsiness that came with the comfort. We'd usually sleep like that for maybe an hour or two before she'd have to go home, because again, we didn't feel comfortable moving to my bedroom, so we certainly didn't feel comfortable with her spending the night - not that we didn't want to, we were just concerned about what our parents would think.

I drop in and out of dreams incredibly quickly - I've had full dreams while asleep for a half an hour, and if I'm not awake between dreams for particularly long, I can actually return to and continue a dream that I was just a part of. Occasionally, this makes it difficult to discern when the dream ended and reality began, at least between parts. Some of my dreams have even been realistic enough - if completely ridiculous - that I will forget if a conversation I had was in a dream or in the real world.

One night, as we were cuddling and sleeping on the couch, I happened to have a nightmare. I have absolutely no recollection of what this nightmare was about - even at the time the moment I woke up the nightmare had disappeared - and I might have never even known that I was having a nightmare at the time at all. However, during that same period of time, my dog had a habit of going to the front door and barking at absolutely nothing, right around 8:30-9:30. Which just so happened to be around when we had fallen asleep that night.

The sound of his barking woke me up, but I was also accustomed to his bullshit, so it didn't fully pull me back to reality. But I was scared. I had been in the middle of a nightmare, and the sound of my dog frantically and crazily barking was certainly not the best wake up call. There was a tightness in my body in that was the only thing I was really aware of in that inbetween state.

The thing that really pulled me out of the dream wasn't the barking, but the frantic whispers of my girlfriend telling me that it was alright. I had no idea what she was talking about - but as I came to, I realized how hard my fingers were dug into her side as I gripped her. That was the tightness I was feeling. And my grip had woken her up more than the dog's barking. Even as I realized it, it still took me a second to actually register and let go of her. Even then, that feeling of fear from the nightmare wouldn't go away. I knew I was awake, and that there was nothing to be afraid of, but it still clutched at my heart. And it wouldn't let go of her, either.

Strangely, I didn't have any nightmares when I actually went to bed that night. Fortunately, that was what helped me feel better by morning.

Board break

I was about 16 when I was testing for my black belt, which I think meant a lot more symbolically than it actually did about my strength, speed, or ability, as one might expect. It meant that I had spent a significant amount of time and energy trying to learn what I could about martial arts. And I loved it. I loved learning how to control my body, and get stronger, and find the weaknesses in my opponents. To learn how to be precise and deadly. And to have a way to focus all of the aggression that I had felt for so long.

Karate helped me to control my anger management issues - although I did continue to be a prick, and frequently hit people using the skills that I had learned. I won't pretend like it made me perfect in any sense of the word. But my anger management problem went down over time, and by the time I was earning my black belt, I had calmed down considerably from when I was a kid.

By the time I earned my black belt, I was one of the regulars of the classes - people knew me, and I knew them. I was nowhere near the strongest, or even the fastest, but I had garnered a reputation for the way that I thought about sparring in particular - if you weren't going to go all out, then what was the point? You were doing both yourself and your opponent a disservice. You were teaching yourself to hold back, and you were teaching them that in a fight, their opponent wouldn't pull everything in the book to win. I didn't play dirty. but I didn't hold back. There were a number of incidents because of it, though I never got any punishment from it. Even with the way I sparred, it was always an accident.

But it was during the testing for my black belt that I first felt like I had done something badass with my martial arts training. I was told to break two boards simultaneously with a single spinning hook kick, which challenged several skills at once. The kick itself, but also my ability to time the snap of my knee, remain accurate while spinning, and actually break the boards. The boards were separated a foot and a half, which was plenty of space to be able to break them both, but it still had to be properly timed.

I remember the nervousness I felt. I loved this kick, but I wasn't sure about actually doing it. I remember shifting back and forth on my feet, calming myself down. And then I remember the strange moment of clarity. The sweep of the room spinning around me. The sharp snap of my knee. And then the two shattered halves of board flying across the room and slamming into the far wall, over twenty feet away.

Appeasement

"And so, in order to appease the snow gods and get them to bless us with a good season, we have presented this twinkie sacrifice."

There was no end to the humor that was in the air. I had no idea how it had started, but it had apparently been a tradition for some years to burn a collection of twinkies during the Christmas celebration so that the rest of the snow season would be good. Being surrounded by skiers and snowboarders, to say nothing of the fact that a good snow season would be good for the company, made it pretty obvious that the more snow there was, the better. No one took the sacrifice seriously - it was just a fun thing to do, and a good story to tell.

We had spent a good amount of time taping six boxes worth of twinkies to a mannequin torso, completely covering it as best as we could. Someone had even crafted a head for the mannequin out of foam and paper bags - though it's neck was far too long, which resulted in several jokes about it being ET, and having a twinkie instead of his finger as he talked about phoning home. We'd even gone to the effort of drilling holes into the mannequin - one so that we could attach the head, and a few others so that we could fill its interior with flammables. We didn't just want to set the outside on fire. Doing so would simply melt the tape, leading it to fall apart.

It was a couple hours before we actually made the sacrifice, though. There had been a lot of anticipation throughout the night for what was to come of the sacrifice, especially because many of us were new and had never seen this before. We had no idea what to expect.

They filled the mannequin partially with lighter fluid, letting it drip out of the bottom and onto the ground, where they had made a trail of the lighter fluid so that it could be lit like a wick. I don't think there wasn't anyone who wasn't terrified for what would happen as the lighter was put to the fluid - the fire traveled quickly, but the mannequin was placed on a stand, and the dripping of the lighter fluid wasn't enough for the flames to travel up and light the sacrifice. We laughed as one man grabbed another container of lighter fluid and head over.

We weren't ready.

When the fire caught, it shot up into the mannequin. The lighter fluid inside ignited instantaneously. The expansion of air as the fire exploded outwards tore apart the holds of the mannequin with ease, and a bang ripped through our eardrums as our sacrifice was torn asunder.

We couldn't have asked for a better result.

Sleeping on the plane

About a month ago now, I wrote about how my mom was sick, and how she had a severe heart attack, and about how I wasn't sure how much writing I was going to be doing in the future because of how hard that rocked me. Fortunately I pushed myself through it, as did she, and now she's fully recovered and moving on with our lives. But that night, as I flew out to see her, I cannot accurately put into words how tired and afraid I was.

It was already pretty late when I got on the plane. Or, at least, it was pretty late for me. I've been working a very early morning job for about a year, which means going to bed several hours earlier than most people, and by the time I was getting on the plane it was well past my bed time. I remember hearing the flight attendants reading their sheets about plane safety, telling us about buckling our seat belts and where the emergency exits were. But I don't remember them exactly stopping talking about it. One second I was there, on the plane, listening, my eyes starting to droop, and then it was black and silent.

I've always been good at sleeping in vehicles. And by that, I mean that being in a moving vehicle for about a half an hour or more just puts me straight to sleep. But I'd never fallen asleep before the vehicle even started moving like that before. I never felt the plane take off. I never heard the roar of the engines. It wasn't a gradual thing like it sometimes is for me, giving me time to adjust myself in my seat to be in a more comfortable position. I was just out.

The bounce as we landed was what woke me up, and it scared the shit out of me. Having not been awake during take off, I thought we were taking off. I thought something had gone wrong. I had gone from still motion to full speed landing, and it felt like we were going fast. Too fast. And we weren't leaving the ground. The bump had felt like something had gone wrong, and the fact we were going so fast but felt like we were trying desperately to slow down made it seem like we were going to crash.

My head whipped violently back and forth, trying to see out an open window, and was surprised to see how calm the other passengers were. My heart was pounding out of my chest, and yet no one else was in the least concerned. It took me too long to realize what had happened.

I had enough reason to be rushing off the plane as it was with my mother, but my chest was still hurting from how hard my heart was pounding, and I wanted off.

Hospital

I've spent a lot of time throughout my life in hospitals - not because I was having troubles or personally needed to be in them, but because the people around me did. I've pretty much always just been a visitor, with the obvious exception of health check ups and the like. I've never experienced what it's like to be laying in the bed, hanging on to life. But I've watched it plenty of times. 

I understand that they're places of healing, and a lot of the time the fact that a person is in the bed and not in the ground is a very, very good thing. But that doesn't change the aura of sadness and coldness that pervades every floor. The feeling that, every time you walk the floors, walk past the different rooms, you might just witness someone's passing on. And that the one doing it might be the one you came to see.

Sometimes you'll come at night, and there's an eerie silence across the halls that only serves to amplify that feeling of walking into the land of the dead. The only sounds that remind you you're still alive are the slow and rythmic beeps of life support systems, machines running, and the quiet whispers of doctors talking about what to do with each patient. You wish that there was anything to make a little more noise, a little different noise. Then you come back in the morning, when there are more visitors and more doctors, and it's easier to overhear them talking about the failing conditions of patients, and you start to miss that eerie silence from the night before. 

And actually visiting doesn't really help. It would be one thing to visit someone with broken bones, but it's another thing entirely to visit someone on the brink of death. To see their bodies failing them, and to feel how weak they are, and to hear them barely be able to talk or breath. 

I've been visiting my mom today, who had a severe heart attack. Her lungs only barely managed not to fail her. I watched her, riddled with tubes, try to cough. Her body shook like she was having a seizure, the machines couldn't read her pulse, and for a good five seconds at a time as she repeatedly tried to cough, her breathing ceased entirely. Each time, I wondered if this was it. If this was the end. 

Taking her breathing tube out wasn't any better. The doctors assured us that she should be strong enough to breath without it, but it had also been well established that if she could not breath without it, my mother did not want it to be put back in. She was certain that she would rather die than go back onto that tube. And while I couldn't blame her, that put a real haze over the whole procedure. This was quite literally do or die. I was in the room, watching, half expecting my mother to die becore my very eyes. 

Fortunately, that was not the case. And accordingly, she's feeling much better. But that wasn't the end of the road. She's got a lot of recovery ahead of her, and if I know my mother, she's going to complain every step of the way. And it's a very real possibility that this will happen again. Soon, even. And she may not make it that time. 

But she did this time. And as much as I don't like being in them, and as much as my grandmother may think otherwise, we have hospitals to thank for that. 

Sickness

Part way through the second grade, my mother became very ill, and one day while we were sitting at home, I remember our front door very abruptly opening to a group of men rushing into our home, lifting her onto a stretcher to take her away to the hospital, while my father dragged a very confused little me away from the scene. My parents were already living apart at the time, so while I wasn't uncomfortable being taken to my dad's house, I was uncomfortable with how things had just suddenly happened, and how no one seemed to want to explain to me what was happening. I cried for a long time.

In following days, weeks, and months, it became commonplace for us to visit my mom in the hospital. I was never entirely clear on what she was sick with, partially because it seemed like every time we went to see her, she had a new problem. That would be a recurring theme for many years to come. I also remember on one visit asking my dad if mom was pregnant, because in her stays at the hospital, she had ended up gaining a lot of weight. I was not the brightest child.

Eventually, we sold the house in which my mother had been taken from, and rented an apartment for her, due to the uncertainty of how much time she would spend in it, thanks to all of the hospital visits. During that time I was able to connect in my brain that my mother was sick a lot better than I had in the past. I hadn't really wanted to accept that fact, but it was hard not to when I was able to spend more time with her, and see how much slower she moved, and how much less she did, and how much more she slept.

But not even the apartment would last. My grandmother decided that she could take care of mom better than the hospital could, which was a decision that I have never understood. But she took my mom away to live with her in Idaho, which really split my life up even further, and in time would drive me to choosing a side of my family in my head.

That's the position I've been in for most of my life. My mother living in a different state, being taken care of by my grandmother instead of a hospital, and having a heavy preference for my dad. My parents divorced during this time, which was an event that was so uneventful I hardly even noticed it happened. Her condition has only continued to degrade over the years, and my grandmother regularly attempts to guilt me into visiting them more because the doctors will say something new about my mom's condition. Eventually, I became numb to that as well.

Recently, my mom has been hospitalized once again, with her condition dropping heavily. Honestly, this happens once or twice a year, and they always tell me that she could die during her time in the hospital, and the frequency and regularity of it has made me numb to even that. At this point, I don't know how I would feel if she did pass away. There's a part of me that thinks that, like my grandfather before her, that might be for the better, given all of the pain that she is constantly in. I feel bad for saying that, but honestly, she's barely had any drive to stay alive for a very long time. The only drive she has had has been me, but she's so connected to the me that I was when she was taken away to the hospital that first day, that she hasn't been able to recognize that I have grown up and changed over the past fifteen or so years. It's painful and frustrating to be continuously treated as though I am only five years old. And I think the further that she drops, the less she will be connected to reality of what is happening. And as frustrated as I get with her sometimes, that's not really what I want for her.

Losing

I've always considered myself to be a loser. I guess that comes with the territory of being a nerd, which I definitely always have been. Hard not to be when one of your earliest memories is waking up Christmas morning and finding a PS1 under your tree, and even though you don't entirely know what that is or what it does, you just start to get excited. And when you see that it lets you control some of your favorite cartoon characters, and move them around on the screen, and making them do dumb and crazy things, well... That just kinda sticks with you for the rest of your life. And it kinda makes you a loser.

But it's almost funny how, even when you're a loser, you're afraid of losing. I have never been a gracious loser. Especially when I was younger, and I had a lot more anger management problems, I would lose in a game and literally physically assault the person who beat me. I never really saw a problem with that. It's amazing I had friends. Even more amazing that some of those friends I had back then are still around. But I learned how to play cheap, and win dirty, just so I wouldn't have to experience losing any more. But that just makes you lose out on opportunities to play.

When I got older, loss became more real. I started to lose some of the friends I made. I would tell myself that it was ok, that the friends I still had were the important ones, and that they meant more to me. And that's not really a lie. But I think I gave more credence to that line of thought than I really should have. While it made most people less important, it did make the ones who were important all the more so. Which makes losing those people far more terrifying.

Especially when you fall in love with one of them. I've been truly, madly in love twice in my life. One moreso than the other, granted, because that's kind of how it goes, but still. The first girl I loved, I loved for nearly six years. We had our problems, though. And with her, I felt what it was like to lose someone you love for the first time. And it was devastating. And then I lost her again. And then a third time. And it never got easier.

But after the third time, I found a second love. A stronger love. A love that pushed that first love aside, and made it less important, less vital to my existence. That second love consumed me, gave me purpose. But I had tasted the loss of love before, and the thought of losing this love became all the more terrifying.

So when the possibility of losing that love arrived on my doorstep again... I tried my hardest not to panic. "You've been through this before," I told myself. "You believe in love. If it wants to pull through, it will. It will stare down the hard times and the bad times, and it will come back stronger than ever." But the words didn't mean much. They weren't even much of a coping mechanism. They were just there to distract me.

It wasn't until I faced that possibility of loss head on... It hurt. I felt like I was being crushed. Pulled apart and crushed simultaneously, being dragged through a space that was too small for me until I arrived at a place that was too large for me to comprehend. But I had lost before. I had been at that massive space before. And I had tried to pretend that it wasn't there. Ignore it, as though that would help. But not this time. I faced that space, that cold and empty expanse. And as I faced it, scared and feeling as though I would be alone... I learned that it was perhaps not so bad. That if I persevered I could reach the other side of it. And that, perhaps there, the loss could be returned.

So I travel that space now. I face my fear. I will face loss, and I will do all that is in my power not to be consumed by it. And I can only believe now that I will overcome it. Because I know what will happen if I don't. And I'd rather not go down that path again.

Costumes

"Why are you wearing that?"

I was wearing a renaissance outfit at the time, which I had pieced together slowly over a number of years as I travelled to faires. It was a bit of a money sink, but I made good use of that outfit, and it was something that brought me a lot of pride and joy. Granted, most people looked at it and assumed I was dressing as a pirate, but that was their fault for taking the media's influence as though it were fact. So the fact that someone was asking me why I were it wasn't necessarily unusual or unwarranted. 

"Because I feel like it."

"No you're not." The man's words were bizarre to me. He spat them at me immediately after I gave him my answer, as though he were prepared to shoot me down. I'm sure he could see the confusion in my eyes. What right did he have to tell me that he knew me better than I did? That he knew why I did things?

"You do it because you're not happy with yourself," he told me. "You want to be something that you're not, because you think that what you are isn't good enough. You try to hide behind a facade that enables you to feel stronger. But that's not strength. That's just you giving up on yourself. That's just you hiding."

Perhaps in another place or situation, his words may have had some credence to them. Maybe, from the way he delivered his statement, it was not the first time he had given such a speech, and with those before me, it had meant something to them. But with me...

"First of all," I retorted, "I'm not hiding behind this. If I was, this wouldn't be the first time in the three months you've known me that you've seen me like this. In fact, this is me literally wearing myself on my sleeves. I'm a medieval history major. I'm wearing this because it's part of who I am, and a part that I'm proud of. And not only this, but I have a half dozen of these kinds of outfits, all of which represent a different part of who I am, what I do, and what I like. So don't tell me that I'm hiding behind something I'm not when I have literally never before been more who I am."

The man's face was stunned. I don't think he'd ever gotten a response like that before. Never seen someone fight back against him in such a way. But the way he had talked down on me had irritated me, and I wasn't ready to let him get away with it.

"And secondly, the reason I felt like wearing it today in particular is because I have a final in my Medieval History class today, and I found it appropriate to wear."

He mumbled something about what he had said becore, weakly trying to insist on it, but I checked out when I realized he wasn't going to budge on that. It wasn't worth arguing. I'd be who I was, and he'd be him, and life would go on. 

Dad

My dad has this impeccable talent for spending weeks or months of his time planning trips for us to take, only to essentially improvising the entire thing once we get there. Or at least most of it. He's also, somewhat ironically, the kind of person who has to have his schedule - which, unfortunately, doesn't make that relaxing of a vacation a lot of the time. I mean, I don't mind knowing that we have things scheduled, places to be at certain times. That's the nature of trying to do things, and I like getting to go and have unique experiences. The problem is more in when that requires me to wake up.

There are times when my dad decides that it makes sense - on vacation - to make a reservation for something at 9 am. In a city that's a two hour drive from where we currently are. Now, I mean, I know I'm going to enjoy doing whatever it is that he's going to schedule for us. Our interests align quite well. It's just that I don't want to have to wake up at 5:30 to allow time for showering, breakfast, traffic, and the inevitability of us getting lost. And I do mean inevitability.

Because that's the other thing that my dad does on vacation. He thoroughly enjoys driving - which doesn't make sense, considering how much he complains about driving, but he's like that with most things - and so when we have a little time to spare, that's what he usually goes for. He just starts driving. Sometimes in circles, sometimes he'll just pick a direction on the highway and go. And if you've ever driven anywhere for any length of time in any capacity ever, then you know how poorly that's going to end. I can't begin to tell you how many close calls we've had on timing because of this.

And not even just close calls. We have definitely had to cancel plans because we were late, because Dad thought it would be a good idea to take the scenic route, which ended up being less scenic and more problematic. I mean, don't get me wrong. We've seen some beautiful sights on these excursions. But they've also so much as doubled our travel times. And then he'll complain about traffic, as if that couldn't have been avoided by just following the initially planned pathway.

He just has an amazing knack for this kind of stuff. And he doesn't think it through from the eyes of the people he's traveling with. To him it makes sense to make these kinds of early morning plans, because he knows that he's going to be up at 5 am anyway. And then it makes sense to go on random excursions that risk making us miss those plans because... I don't know. Spontaneity? Which he does seem to enjoy, since he'll start making these plans and early morning reservations at the drop of a hat. Despite how inconvenient it may be for anyone else.

But hey. He's my dad, and I've experienced some amazing stuff thanks to him. I just wish maybe he'd do it a bit later in the day most of the time.

Slides

It was a dark and muddy night, with the moon hanging low over the horizon, a dull haze coming from the weak light of the carnival's overhead system. My mother and I were riding a small, slow moving train system that was designed to take you around the park, let you see what was available and easily get on and off to try the rides. We made our way around the spinning tea cups and found a massive array of slides and, deciding to try them, ascended the tower to the entrances.

There was a man there dressed all in white, his smile perfect except for the missing tooth in the back left. I remember the look in his eyes as he greeted us, though I don't remember the words he spoke. But he was enticing us forward. It was more than just being an attendant. He wanted us to ride down the slide. Was very insistent that we should. So we did.

The slide was longer than I thought it was. Longer than it should have been. Mom had gone first, and I could just barely see over her shoulder as we slid deeper and deeper down. Like a premonition, I saw what we were heading towards.

Saws. Guillotines. Hammers. Designed to crush, flatten, chop and shred us into pieces. I remembered in the vague extents of my memory hearing something about the confetti at this particular carnival practically being alive. It very abruptly made sense why that was.

I desperately tried to claw my way back up, but I was began to ascend, I realized that my mother was not so lucky. I dove back down for her, but I could see that it was too late. The first hammer was falling down...

I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming for my mom. It was a hot night, and a small and worthless fan was blowing from the hallway into the bedroom. My head was where my feet usually were. I looked over and saw my mom, sleeping peacefully, somehow unawoken by my screams.

It took a long time to get back to sleep with my heart pounding as hard as it was.

I dreamed of returning to the carnival, knowing the truth. Of being unable to convince anyone. Of seeing my uncle already cut into fun size bits and pieces, and despite that him speaking to me, telling me how fun it was to become confetti, and how I should join him.

I woke again to find myself curled into a ball.

I dreamed of running through the carnival, trying to stop people from going down the slides, screaming desperately to tell them of the danger. But no one listened. They wanted to be torn apart, mashed down, become little more than bits of paper to be thrown into the wind.

My head was agonizing when I woke. But it was still the dead of the night.

I dreamed of having escaped. Of having arrived in a hotel far, far away, where I could be at peace. But as I was relaxing, I received a call. My father was diagnosed with cancer. There was only one thing that could be done for him. It wasn't a treatment. It was a punishment. The slides.

I dreamed too many times that night. It was very difficult for a very long time after that to even look at a slide, much less slide down it.

Archery

When I was a child, studying the arts of being a boy though not yet understanding them, I was handed a bow and arrow, pointed down a course, and told to hit a bale of hay with a paper target on it. And if I hit the bullseye of that target, I was told that I would be given a small wooden bead with a poorly painted target on it to show as proof of my victory.

That may not sound like much to you, but to a ten year old boy, it was complete and utter magic to my ears.

I don't recall how many arrows I shot, or how many times I returned to the archery range to give it a second shot. I can, however, tell you how many of those tiny wooden beads I obtained.

A whole, whopping zero.

But the memory of the bow stayed with me and mixed with the inherent love I had of the middle ages. Like many boys, I spent a good amount of time playing make believe - a skill I wish adults still had, but I digress - and when doing so, if I didn't have a sword in my hands, you can bet I had a bow. Even when the game was all about using guns.

I tried a few times throughout my life to pick up toy bows and arrows, but it never had the same satisfaction to it. It was always too small, too unwieldy, too inaccurate. In time, I all but gave up the idea of ever really using a bow, and especially of ever having any talent at it.

But fortunately, the cub scouts lead to the boy scouts, and in boy scouts, you can be quite sure that chances arise a second time.

I was a young teenager by the time I picked up a bow again, and in the time between I had gained strength thanks to my new involvement in karate. Where once I had been a scrawny and weak child, though I was by no means strong, I was certainly stronger than times passed.

I didn't expect much. I remembered the past. I remembered taking my bow, with all the confidence in the world, and never once even hitting the target, firing one wide over the bale, and the next into the dirt at my feet.

And so I lifted that bow. I notched that arrow. I pulled back, further than ever before. I could feel it. The pull in my arm and in my back. I looked down the shaft of my arrow, straight at the target, and I let it go.

It struck true. And the arrow stuck halfway out of the bullseye. And I was handed that small wooden bead that I had sought so hard in the past.

And once more I was a boy. So happy with my bead, as I would have been back then.

I love you

We had been sitting in the grass for an hour, just awkwardly attempting to make conversation. Admittedly, we hadn't known each other all that long, and we were still very much in that awkward phase of figuring stuff out. There were a lot of things that we had to learn about each other, and while we were trying to work on figuring them out, that kind of thing always takes time, because it's a lot harder to think of the important things about yourself than you expect it to be.

But she was running low on time, needing to get back home, so, somewhat reluctantly, we got up and shared a goodbye hug. Hard to say how long we were standing there. Far longer than a goodbye hug had any right to last, but it sure didn't stop us. We didn't want to leave.

I don't think there was any denying at the time what our feelings for each other were. They were young and fledgling, sure, but we were fully aware of them, and at least some of the people around us were too. We just didn't fully understand them. Not yet. Perhaps I had a better idea - I had more experience. But this was new. Different. In a lot of ways.

But when I was holding her, and all throughout when we had been talking, there was one thought running through my mind. Three little words, repeating over and over in my head, and I wanted to say them out loud, but... Could I? Should I? How would she react? Was now the right time? Did I even really mean them? There was just something about her, something I couldn't explain, but that I felt rushing up against me, forcing its way into every inch of my brain until there wasn't any space for anything else.

I knew it was early. There were still a lot of uncertainties, a lot of things that had the potential to fail. But I knew what I was feeling, or at least I felt pretty sure that I did. And I had a good feeling about what her feelings were. And yet...

Then she was pulling away. She had more than run out of time, and she needed to go. It was the make or break time. I could speak my mind, just let it happen, let out those words that were straining so hard against my brain, or I could hold it back and have it continue to fester and bother me. The struggle of saying them was so frustrating, so painful, that I just didn't know if I even could.

So I made up my mind. I took her face in my hands. I looked her in the eyes. I summoned up all the courage in my body, all the stupidity that allowed me to ignore my inhibitions, all of the fear and need, and I pushed it all into that one, tiny, quiet sentence.

"I love you."

The words were out of my mouth, and it was too late to reach out and grab them back. Iwas almost scared to see her expression, but the look on her face. Her thoughts were practically spelled out right there in her eyes.

"Oh my god. I can't believe you just said that. Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm going to kiss you so hard right now."

A history of interests

When I was knee high to a grasshopper, just old enough to begin forming opinions and finding what kinds of things I liked and didn't like, my parents found it difficult to actually make me do that. I suppose in retrospect I can understand the difficulty, seeing as to this day I continue to be ambivalent to most things that I am introduced to. Sports, music, movies. I just didn't care about anything that my parents tried to introduce me to. It wasn't until a trip to Las Vegas (somewhat ironically, given that not a single person in my family actually enjoys being in Vegas, myself included) that we managed to find something I could actually like.

It was a dinner event, and I don't think anyone can honestly say why we decided to go to it. But it was themed as a tournament in the middle ages, with a set of knights battling it out on foot and on horseback in a variety of games and competitions to decide who was the greatest knight among them. Cliche? Sure. Over acted and clearly an act? Probably. But I was mesmerized. Utterly captured by these men in shining armor, competing to show their strength, masters of their animals, a complete lack of fear as sparks flew and metal clashed. They put food in front of me and I didn't even touch it. My dad had to get me fast food on the way out because I hadn't eaten at the dinner show.

Years later, my dad had tried to teach me to play piano. As usual, I was completely uninterested. I wasn't very into the sound at the time, I didn't want to be sitting down at this big, dull instrument, and I couldn't for the life of me remember where the hell middle C was, whatever the hell that even meant. I tried for maybe a total of two days before giving up, and my dad was short behind me. Then, while visiting some family friends a few months later, my dad came home from the store and put down an acoustic guitar in front of me. He had just seen it and decided, if I didn't like piano, maybe I would like guitar.

Unlike piano, however, there wasn't a single member of my family that knew how to play the guitar. So for that day, I messed around with it a bit, having no idea what anything on the wooden thing meant, before putting it aside, presumably to be left in the dust. It was another few months before, in a boy scout meeting, my dad was introduced to a guitar teacher that a friend of mine was under the tutelage of. The next week, so was I. And ten years later, I'm still playing guitar.

But that wasn't all that boy scouts gave me. Eventually, my family became heavily involved in boy scouts, to the point where we were some of the primary planners of troop outings. And in looking for potential trips, we found a deal with a sports team called the Stealth who played a game we had never even heard of before - Lacrosse. Out of curiosity, and being reasonably close to the event, we decided to check it out.

We knew none of the rules. We don't know any of the people. We could barely keep up with what was going on. But when the Stealth scored their first goal, it was like magic. One second I was dully watching the game, trying just to understand the basics of what was happening. The next I was on my feet, screaming my lungs out in excitement. I didn't even remember getting out of my seat. I remember sitting down afterwards, and my dad was ecstatic that we had found something else that I enjoyed.

Dating

It had been a very long week up until that point, not by the amount of things that were happening, but by the things that were absent. It was perhaps the longest week of my life up until that point. Or at least it felt like it at the time. The last day up until that point had been marked by packing, getting ready to make a flight to visit my mother for a week, during which even less would be happening. I would have nothing but time to agonize over the silence that had been plaguing me. But at the last minute, that silence was broken.

I don't know if it was better or worse for that silence to have been broken, seeing as in turn it broke me as well. I was never much of one for talking, but for a few minutes, I was more silent than usual. I think this caught my dad's attention already, but the utter devastation and uncontrollable sobbing that followed thereafter were what made him take action.

I felt as though my heart had been ripped straight out of my chest. I had lost my girlfriend under circumstances that I couldn't have imagined in my wildest nightmares, and the fact that it hurt her just as much as it hurt me only served to worsen the pain.

I don't think my dad fully understood the pain, or what had brought it on. I didn't want to go into details. I barely wanted to talk about it, and I knew he couldn't sympathize. So in silence we finished packing up, and he drove me to the airport.

On the way, he tried to give me a myriad of advice. A few in particular I remember quite clearly. The first, he told me to eat chocolate. He said that something in how it was made would make me feel better. I didn't like chocolate, but at the airport I tried it anyway.

It didn't help.

Secondly, he gave me this incredible piece of advice on dating. He told me, "You should get out there and date as many people as you possibly can. See what it is that you like, and how people change between when you are dating them and when you are not."

This advice hit me hard. Specifically, because it was idiotic.

I remember having a moment of clarity in which I looked at my father with what must have been the most incredulous look I have ever mustered in my life. "Why would I do that?" I asked him. "Why not just be friends with people? If someone changes from how they are when I'm friends with them to when I'm dating them, I wouldn't want to date that person."

My dad paused for a long time, thinking over my words. "That's a better plan," he told me.

It was no wonder to me why he was divorced in that moment.

Looking back, it's funny how much about me has changed, and how much has stayed the same. That day no longer seems like such a big deal. And yet the stupidity of my father's advice sticks with me, as does my logic of the response. After all, what is your significant other but the ultimate best friend?

Blackout

When I was in grade school, I absolutely loved to play wallball, which in retrospect is an utterly boring game. The entire game was that, with however many people as you could gather, you'd just bounce a ball against the wall, and whoever missed hitting the ball at the wall was the loser of that round. It was kind of like a one sided tennis match, but using something more like dodgeballs.

I was, like, ten. It was easier to entertain ourselves back then.

But I played this game almost every time I got a chance. I didn't even care if I didn't have anyone to play with, I would play it anyway. I have to imagine teachers must have seen me bouncing a ball against a wall by myself all the time and pitied me, but I didn't mind in the slightest. I thought it was fun.

One time in particular, in about fourth or fifth grade, I remember playing with a group of about five kids. We had to use a bigger wall to fit so many of us on it, so we were out in one of the bigger areas of the school campus, rather than in an off corner like we usually were, which meant that a lot of things were happening in the immediate vicinity. Lots of other kids playing their own games, many of which involved other balls.

It was the lunch period, which meant a longer recess, and it was near the end of it, so we were all getting pretty tired. That meant that a lot of us were starting to lose points as the ball soared passed our hands. One kid struck the ball particularly hard, and it bounced over our heads and went flying off towards the fields. I was the fastest kid in the group, and I shot after it without a second thought.

Unfortunately, behind us were some kids that were playing basketball, and at that moment they just so happened to have also lost control of their ball. I didn't see it until the last second, right as I planted my foot solidly on the ball, which sent me spiraling backwards.

I heard the slam of my head against concrete before everything went back. The other kids were a good distance away when I went down. But when I opened my eyes, they were all standing around me and looking down at me. I don't know how long I had been laying there, but my head was throbbing. One of the kids helped me back onto my feet and, without saying much, I made my way over to the planter to sit down.

I didn't move much until recess was over. I was feeling really weird, and my head wouldn't stop pounding in my ears. I remember someone came over to ask if I was alright, and I just waved them off.

What really got people's attention was that, when class started, I didn't go back in. I felt terrible, and I could barely hear the words coming out of anyone's mouths. It only took a couple minutes before my teacher came out to try and find me. When I told her about what happened, she immediately sent me to the principal's office to have my parents called to come and get me.

The office was very confused to find me walk in. I didn't look like I was in trouble, and I wasn't visibly injured, but as soon as I explained what happened I was pushed into the nurse's office and my house put on the line.

I felt dumb. The pain was beginning to subside, and I felt like I could have gone back to class, but no one would hear anything of it. I had a pretty sizable lump on the back of my head, too, upon closer inspection, and touching it certainly sent shocks through my system.

My grandpa was the one who came to get me. He apparently didn't have the story explained to him very well, so for about the sixth time that day by that point I explained what had happened. Before I knew it, I was in the car heading home.

I think back on that every once in a while. Surprisingly, I haven't had a lot of serious injuries in my life, and this was probably one of the more serious ones I've had. Especially given how old I was and how hard I hit the ground, I could've stayed under a lot longer, and I could have had some permanent damage. As far as I'm aware, though, I didn't, and I'm pretty lucky to be able to say that. I've experienced a lot of things in my life. Would've been a shame for them to have been cut off so early.

Trunkaphobia

My mom and my dad had a lot of problems with one another, and for a large portion of my childhood this was the key proponent of my life. Today, I remember arguments they had better than even they do. Petty arguments and disagreements that hardly even make sense to me, like why he would kiss her, or whether or not I should go to summer camps. Those like the latter especially confused me even at the time, because I simply didn't understand why that argument was happening, and I wasn't allowed to have a part in it.

Even before I remember anything of my life, these kinds of arguments lead to my parents living in two different houses. Of course, I grew up like that, so for a long time I didn't even realize that that was something out of the ordinary. Regardless, for nearly my entire life, and certainly for all that I can possibly remember, my parents have lived separately from one another.

Eventually, my mother had to move out of the condo that she was living in, due to a series of health problems she was struck with. She got an apartment in a different part of town, closer to my dad's house so that she would be closer to someone who could help her if something happened, and we spent a weekend moving her in.

More than all of the arguments and separation problems, this single weekend was the worst part for me about the problems between my parents.

While we were moving things between houses, we were using multiple cars. My dad's car, which was a standard, small car, and my grandpa's truck. It took us a few trips, and after the second trip, I had an idea to prank my dad. You see, in his car, you could pull down the back seats and open up a hole into the trunk, so that you could store longer items. I had the idea to slip back into the trunk, and when dad came out to put stuff back there, I would pop out and surprise him. The backseat could only be opened from inside of the car, but I wasn't too worried about it. I would only be in there for a minute or two, and leaving the seat open would give away where I was, so I closed it behind me.

Unfortunately, no one told me we weren't using that car on the third trip. 

After a few minutes went by and the trunk didn't open, it began to occur to me that perhaps I had made a bad decision. I kept waiting, and I heard them loading things into the truck, but no one came. It was the middle of summer, and the longer I waited, the hotter it got.

I started screaming. Screaming for dad to come get me, I'm in the trunk, please come get me. Please dad, it's me, I'm in the trunk and it's hot and I feel like I'm dying, please please please. 

But no one came. 

I don't know how long I was actually in there. It felt like hours. It was probably only half of one. By the time my dad realized that no one knew where I was, I had given up screaming. I'm not sure what gave them the idea to check the trunk of dad's car, but they finally opened it up to find me curled up into a ball and crying.

It turns out that my screaming had been muffled by the car, and so my words were unintelligible and distant sounding. They thought the neighbors were beating their kid. I didn't help anymore that day with moving. I just stayed in the house and tried not to cry anymore. 

It was a long time before I got over that. Just the sight of an open trunk sent shivers through my spine, made my eyes water, and made my stomach churn.

This was when I was in first grade. It took until roughly high school for me to get over that fear.

Missed chance

I was standing in line for lunch, talking with a friend of mine. It was Senior year of High School, and to celebrate that it was our last year, the school had taken us out to a water park. Walking around in swimsuits, and specifically seeing girls walking around in swimsuits, was an enjoyable experience, especially given how hot out it was. We had already paid for lunch when we had signed up for the field trip, so there was little to worry about. My friend and I had, for really the first time, gotten down to talking about girls and what we were in to when it came to them, when one girl in particular caught my eye.

She was off in a separate lunch line, talking with a group of her friends, and by coincidence we managed to glance at each other, and our eyes made contact. Her face struck a chord with me, and I could not for the life of me think of way. I must have looked like some kind of creepy, perverted asshole, staring at her in her bikini, trying to think of why I knew her.

Just when I thought of it - she was a student with the same guitar teacher as I - my friend grabbed my attention, wanting to know what I was looking at. I tried to explain that I had seen someone I recognized, only to realize that I had absolutely no idea what her name was. It's not like that was an uncommon occurrence for me, but having thought of who she was, it began to irritate me that I couldn't bring her name to mind.

I turned back to where I had seen her to point her out, but she was abruptly gone. She had likely disappeared into the lunch room, which I was still awaiting entry for, and being as poor at descriptions as I was, I couldn't enlist my friend to help me find her.

Throughout the entirety of lunch, I kept looking around the area, trying to find that girl all over again. My friend and I talked about a variety of things, but I was only half invested.

Afterwards, having still failed to find or identify the girl, and seeing as we had already gone on all of the water slides before lunch, we decided that we would take advantage of the situation. We made our way to the middle of the park, where there were collections of beach chairs, and took our seats to relax. We watched people walk by, and we pointed out all of the hot girls to each other. We made a game out of it, keeping tally of who was the first to notice a hot girl walking by. The whole time, I was watching for that one girl and trying to remember her name.

By the end of the day, I had failed two-fold. Not only had I failed to re-find or identify the girl, but my friend had found more hot, bikini clad girls first then I had.