I Was Not Meant For This World

At the start, we live the life that was chosen for us. In the end, we live the life we choose for ourselves. It was the transition that proved to be most difficult...and the most crucial.

I was told that my b-grandmother discussed aborting me with my b-mom. Obviously, my b-mom decided to have me.  This would be the first of many dances I shared with death, without going home with it.

Around the age of five, I was standing in the kitchen searching the freezer for a pop sicle. I had a stellar little afro, huge curls and shaped to perfection. A-mom took great pride in my hair.  My a-mom was cooking supper. My father? He was sitting in the next room on the sofa, cleaning a shotgun.
A-mom yelled at me for standing with the freezer door open. I turned and looked at her. There was a huge *BANG* that rocked everyone's nerves...except mine. Purely by accident, the gun had gone off and sent a bullet blasting through the wall, where I stood on the other side. Not even an inch away from my head was the hole the bullet left behind. My a-mom was terrified and furious. I imagine my dad was served a healthy helping of cuss words.

Well before the age of ten, my family installed one of those enourmous above-ground pools. I had no idea how to swim, but my a-brother, Willie, was watching me as I kicked around on a small floatation device. For whatever reason, Willie left me for a few minutes. Of course, that was the moment I slipped off the "floaty" and sank like a rock. I thrashed around for a bit, starting to panic. I held my breath as long as I could, then just as I swallowed a bit of water, Willie returned and pulled me out.

Of course, all this time there was also the bastard that running lose that had threatened to kill me and my b-family. But as you've read, I didn't know anything about this.

There was the time I got covered in fire ants and went into shock. All I really recall of that moment was being rushed to the hospital where I was covered in ice-cold towels. I can't forget the time my house caught on fire while everyone was asleep, the time my first apartment in Tulsa caught fire, the numerous times I tried to commit suicide, the racist rednecks in my hometown that threatened to run me and my friends over, getting stranded in 100 degree weather out in the middle of nowhere...It just keeps going.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I've rarely felt like I belong here. When I was very young, I would catch bits of news or hear of something horrible and my heart would break. As I got older, I could not understand or accept how cruel people were to each other. I was just as baffled at how people took care of themselves. I worked so hard at trying to do the right things, caring about people...The real world did not function that way. Now, everyone can say that, I'm sure. However, I could not ignore or allow the wrongs of the world to become natural to me. I felt...alien.

This is all before Joe even came into my life. Still, I went about life with this outrageous sense of humor.  I went through a few years of bullying kids that I thought were weaker than me. I was cruel to them. By seventh grade, my obnoxious, wild, funny side was reaching a peak. I tortured people with comments and actions that I hate to admit to.
Oddly, I remember the moment. I was sitting in science class, looking at a projected image of the human anatomy, which made me think of one of my teachers. Then, like Mike Tyson punching me in the chest, I was struck with this feeling of pain and depression. I stopped talking, stopped joking, stopped bullying. At the end of my junior year, I wrote several letters of apology and gave them to a few of the peers I had been most cruel to. I changed like a switch being flipped right there in class, staring at that projector screen.
Nothing had happened in my life at that point. I have no idea where that came from, but between all the near death experiences, my inability to cope with the awful things people do to each other without remorse, all the mistakes I have made, and the tragedies that have piled up in my life...I begin to think...I was not meant for this world. I am a mistake.
I've spent my entire life struggling with the values I placed on myself, values I expected and tried to force on others and on this never-ending fight to "perfect" the world as I thought it needed to be. I couldn't find a place that I belonged, so I tried to create the "perfect" world...but that will NEVER happen.
Why do I keep going? Why am I still here? Because of that AA prayer about having the strength to change what I need to, the ability to accept things I cannot change, and wisdom to know the difference. Maybe I don't belong here, but while I'm here I have found people and things that I can help. So, I keep trying different philosophies for living and recently adopted this one; Stop trying to fight the entire world. Stop trying to save the entire world. Just live in it and try to make it as good as possible for the people I love...for as long as we are all here. Cheesy, but true.