Welcome to my happily ever after...
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Walk the Line
Oh boy, I sure wish that I had more sobriety under my belt before the holidays came rolling by. The holidays are always such a hard time for me, and now I have to do them without being anesthetized by alcohol. Typically after spending two days with my parents, the first thing I do once I get back to my house is toss back a 12 pack of beer and pass out. I can't do that this year, so I have to try to figure out why I feel the need to do that. I have one theory in particular:
My childhood was not pleasant at all. I was never really allowed to be a kid by my parents...they always placed so much emphasis on reading and doing adult things that I never really had toys or played much with other kids. My mother was a former teacher, and by the time I started kindergarten I read voraciously. This is because when other boys were out playing in the dirt, I was being home schooled in the hopes of being the next child prodigy. Therefore I had no skills when it came to dealing with other kids, and consequently, I was teased a lot. It didn't help that in the third grade I moved up two grades....therefore being younger than everyone else by two years. Social suicide.
Things really started getting bad around junior high.....the age where kids really get mean and get a kick out of making peers that aren't just like them feel bad. One day riding home from school on my bicycle, some older boys came up behind me and hit the back tire of my bike, causing me to fly over the handlebars and knock out my front two teeth. I still have a mouth full of porcelain caps as a result.
Once in 7th grade, a group of boys came over to my house and knocking on the door wanting me to come outside so they could beat me up. Obviously I didn't go out there while my mother shooed them off. I ended up getting a migraine so bad that I beat my head on the ground because it made it feel better.
Things got progressively worse and worse. I didn't have any other male friends because they all thought I was weird or a fag or whatever, and it seemed that all I ever really wanted was to just fit in. It never happened. I vividly remember once in high school the band was taking an overnight trip somewhere and we had to sign up for roommates in the hotel we were staying at that night. Of course I had a few girlfriends in the band with me, but as far as male friends were concerned, there were none. I ended up having to stay with two other boys that no one wanted to stay with....one that would pick his zits and lick his fingers, and another boy that was known around town as a peeping tom. For months after that trip, everyone talked about how much fun it was. My memory was going back to the room after the football game and going straight to bed while everyone else stayed up all night with their friends.
Another incident that haunts me still: one day I was called to the principal's office and found out that someone had spray painted "Jonathan Smith is a prick and a fag" on the side of the school. They asked if I had any idea who might have done it. Sad thing was that I had no idea. It could have been anyone.
I still harbor a lot of anger and resentment from those days, and going home to the house I grew up in brings all those memories rushing up to the top. I'm currently 34 years old, and the hurt is still as raw now as it was 20 years ago.
As I mentioned in yesterday's entry, I think that when I first started doing meth that I was finally hanging with the cool kids. Little did I know that yet again the cool kids would end up fucking up my head forever.
It's yet another Friday where I'm faced with all this time and figuring out what to do with it. Tonight I would like to go see Walk the Line with Greg. Have I ever mentioned that I'm related to Johnny Cash? That's the truth, Ruth. No plans at all for tomorrow...I wouldn't mind lying on the couch and reading all day long. I simply can't put A Million Little Pieces down.
10:42 a.m. - 2005-11-18
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