Anniversaries

 2024 so far has been...well, not really that great in a lot of respects, as you folks know -- I had an entire series of entries here earlier this year that were titled "2024 Can Suck It, Part [number]." Aside from the new children, this has been a really rough, draining year without a lot of good to show for it. But, it is a strange year for anniversaries of many different, sometimes very odd or bad things. Life milestones and the like. And I've been thinking a lot about those as of late.

Yesterday, April 20, was the 25th anniversary of the Columbine shooting. I honestly wouldn't have thought about it if NPR had not made a point to mention it in the daily news brief I get on my Alexa, as I feel so far removed from my life 25 years ago that it feels like a different person had those experiences. I can't tell you where I was when I first heard about it, but I can tell you who I was -- I was nearing the end of my sophomore year of high school -- a school I'd only been attending for about six months as we'd just moved to the area the week of Thanksgiving the previous year. I did not fit in. I had very, very few friends. I listened to a lot of hard rock and metal, wore a lot of black, owned and wore combat boots, and my hair was long, curly, and wild (It would, ahem, relax itself a few years later). I owned multiple Marilyn Manson t-shirts and was a fan of his music, and to top it all off, I owned and wore a long, black trench coat as my primary coat in the winter/spring months. 

My life was very different after April 21, 1999 compared to April 20, 1999, when it came to how I was treated as a person in high school. As you might imagine. 

I wasn't feared -- not really. I wasn't necessarily even bullied. But I was ostracized. I was looked at differently. I was treated differently. I heard "oh, how many guns do you carry under that coat?" as a joking question more times than I could count, or "if you get mad, are you gonna kill me?" etc, followed by mocking laughter. I was referred to as "Trench Coat Mafia" I don't know how many times -- and those were by the bolder kids. Most everyone else just ignored me or avoided eye contact. 

Luckily, it was nearing the end of the school year and barely anyone really knew me, but I knew if I did not find some ways to conform, I would not get by. I put away the trench coat -- I did not wear it regularly again for a few years, until I was in college. I shaved my head almost down to the skin (but not entirely) and kept it short (or relatively short) until after I graduated high school. I put away or donated a lot of my metal band t-shirts -- as well as any other clothing that could be considered controversial at the time -- and the ones I kept, I also didn't really wear much throughout the rest of my high school years. I traded in the combat boots for Chuck Taylors, which I was not used to and gave me painful blisters on my feet until I broke them in. I spent the summer and early fall shopping for clothing that was more normal -- plain jeans, plaid or flannel button-up shirts, a hoodie here and there. I mentally detached myself from a lot of the music I had been listening to -- new as well as old. Instead, I dove into Star Trek and Star Wars, anime, the internet, the resurgence of Transformers and Robotech that was going on at the time, and started listening to the more "socially acceptable" punk rock records that were coming out in the late 90s. I buried myself in my PlayStation. We had digital cable with every channel, so I buried myself in movie channels -- obscure films or movies I'd never seen up to that point. I had a VCR and blank VHS tapes were plentiful and inexpensive at Kmart, so I began building a movie collection of films I would watch over and over. I wanted to be a writer, so I began obsessively journaling.

Looking back on it now, the Columbine shooting ended up completely changing my trajectory as a person, as a human. I would likely not be as much of an introvert or a nerd without it. My tastes in music today would be wildly different -- one band would not have led me to another, and to another, and to the other older bands those bands drew inspiration from, and so forth. My fashion sense would be wildly different today. I would not have learned to efficiently repress the person I am to fit in more with our actual society, even if at great detriment to myself at times. But, at the same time, it gave me a great deal of sympathy and empathy for the kids who had actually committed the shooting. I didn't agree with them, per se, but I certainly felt (and still feel) that I understood them a lot better than most attempted to, or the media attempted to. Because, let me tell you, heavy metal music and violent video games never made me want to pick up a gun and kill somebody -- but if I were a little more unhinged and less mentally stable in my teenage years, being ostracized and treated like an untouchable outcast may have. Being incessantly made fun of, taunted, bullied, shamed -- may have. And I don't think that me saying that, or feeling that, justifies the absolute tragedy that happened that day, because nothing can ever justify that sort of action -- but I do say that I feel for those misguided boys, those (frankly) abused boys, abused and misunderstood by the society around them.

And while we're on the subject, it is not lost on me that this October is the 25th anniversary of my suicide attempt.

I've gone into this before here, a few years ago -- and I don't really want to rehash old wounds or old trauma. I was a junior in high school and I was having a mental breakdown. My parents were fighting a lot, I was fat and hated myself, the girl I'd fallen in love with wanted to "just be friends," and I had been ripped from the life I'd known in the city where I'd lived all my life...to be deposited on top of a  redneck mountain in the middle of fucking nowhere -- which with no car, no money, no job, very few friends, and two feet of snow in every winter snowstorm meant that I was, essentially, trapped there as a prisoner. 

I took the majority of a bottle of aspirin. 

It didn't work. 

I was sick for about 36 hours or so (give or take, it's all a blur now) but, of course, I lived. My parents never knew about it. In fact, to this day, I still don't think they know about it. I tried to tell my mother about it sometime later, and she brushed it off like I was just being dramatic in the moment, and after that I never bothered to try to tell her about it again.

To this day, very few people know about that story, about that experience. A ballpark number would be less than ten, excluding (of course) anyone who's ever read about it here. I am referring to people I actually told, in person, with my mouth. 

My teenage years sucked, folks. No wonder I became an alcoholic for a few years in college. Getting drunk was the only way that I actually felt like I could be myself -- the only way, the only time, that I felt I was the real me. And I'm sure, in that time, I burned a lot of bridges too, and made a lot of people who otherwise would have been able to connect with me alienated from me, never to be seen again. 

The next big touchpoint/anniversary is that 15 years ago, in 2009, I had what ended up being the biggest turning point in my life -- I had to make one of three decisions:

1. Move to Kansas with my girlfriend at the time (referred to here, on the rare occasions I mention her, as Alley) as she'd just gotten accepted into grad school
2. Not go with her, essentially ending our relationship but remaining in St. Joseph, MO where I worked and lived at the time, basically until something else came along -- or just make a new life there permanently, which would have been possible
3. Not go with her, letting the relationship end, and find a way to move back home to West Virginia -- which was possible but would not be easy -- and essentially felt like "giving up" and returning to the aforementioned prisoner lifestyle above.

I did, of course, choose option #1. We lived in her family's old house outside of Kansas City for most of the summer and then moved to Kansas that August -- which allowed me some much needed downtime for a while, but also allowed me to get a job at the local newspaper (a job I loved) and allowed me to enter grad school the next year to get my Master's degree. Our relationship eventually ended, of course (truthfully it was mostly over before we moved to Kansas, but I don't think either of us really realized it at the time), but that allowed me to laser focus on my cats and my studies, taught me how to live alone and fend for myself -- as well as how to budget, do poor-man's car repairs/maintenance, and learn how to cook -- and eventually, three years later, led me to Daisy.

It also put me into massive student loan and credit card debt as well, because poor, and there were many times that I questioned my choices and the path I'd chosen, but in the end it was the right path. 

If I'd chosen option #2, I likely would have stayed in St. Joseph for several years -- the grocery store I worked in at the time that inspired this entire website was doing well and I was one of their most beloved, reliable, valuable employees. I likely would have become a department manager or store manager at some point if I'd stayed there, and while the pay wasn't amazing (and is but a fraction of what I make now) it was fine for the time and for where I lived. I would not have gotten my Master's, though, nor would I have the debt I have now, and I almost certainly would not have found Daisy. I would likely have been in a very poor state of health after a few years, and I likely would have gone a little nutty or stir-crazy living in the tiny apartment I had, but if I'd just dealt with it, toughed it out, and gone where that road would have taken me, by now I believe I likely would have bought a decent used car, purchased a small house, and likely would have gotten away from the grocery business one way or another. Would I be married? Eh, I don't know. I probably would've continued smoking so much that I would've either contracted lung cancer or had at least one heart attack, so...I don't know. 

If I'd chosen option #3, moving back home a few short years before my parents purchased their beach house in North Carolina, I would've had a crazily different life. I am up in the air on whether I would have pursued graduate school at that point, even though WVU was readily accessible and my parents both still worked there at the time and had not yet retired. It would have been far more difficult to obtain and pay for/insure a vehicle -- and even harder to get a job that I could live on -- but I would have had a support network of family and friends in the area. Daisy would never have been in the picture at all, but I know that within a few years I would have married and probably had children with whoever I ended up with. The downside to that is that it wouldn't have been Daisy, I wouldn't have my cats (who Alley would've either taken with her when we parted ways or they would have gone to the shelter, as I would not have been able to transport three cats across the country). But, let's say I remained single, moved back home, and got my previous job at the grocery store -- or my job in Microbiology -- back and began pulling in a small amount of income. I would have had another choice to make when the parents bought the NC house -- whether to join them as they gradually moved their entire lives down there and finally began living down there permanently...or essentially become the caretaker of the WV house and the cats my parents had there. With the former, I could have finally lived out my dream of living on a beach coastline, could have found a great job/career in North Carolina and completely started a new life there. With the latter, I would've had a giant house to myself, filled with food, entertainment, cats, and fast internet -- and I would've finally been able to write.

So, I don't know. While there are clear ups and downs to both other paths, I'm very content with the path I chose. I met the love of my life, I have five wonderful cats (two of whom are, as you know, my original cats) and I own a home in a part of the country I never thought I'd be living in, but y'know, it's fine. I still wonder at times how those other multiverse Brandons are doing, though.

Of course, I would be leaving a giant chunk of my life out of the picture if I did not mention that in a little over a month, Daisy and I will be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary.

A lot of marriages -- a lot of them -- do not make it to ten years. My mother was married twice, and neither of those marriages lasted ten years (one lasted seven, the other lasted four). 

It is not always easy. For those of you who are not currently married or who have never been married, I will tell you that it is not easy. A marriage takes a lot of work on both sides, and my marriage to Daisy is likely what you'd expect in many ways and completely outside of what you'd expect in many others. Neither of us really believe in traditional gender roles, or roles within a marriage. We're both just partners and we each do what we can or what we're skilled at. For example, Daisy does cook and clean -- a lot -- but I do all of the laundry and keep the cats fed and always have their food stocked. Daisy is the handyman of the household (because really, I'm not) -- she handles electrical work, replacement parts for most appliances and household items, does a fair amount of the yard work, and is a Ms. Fixit type of person. I am not that guy, I don't have those skillsets. I am not ashamed to admit that. Most of the time I mow the grass and do the string trimming, I take care of the trash and recycling every week, I try to keep us stocked on every household supply one could think of, and I do all of the incidental stuff that Daisy either wouldn't think of or wouldn't care to do -- for example, the Christmas cards every year being one of those things. She vacuums, I wash and replace the cats' couch blankets. She cooks most of the meals and does most of the dishes, and I handle all the cats' dishes and wash their fountain. I strip the bed, wash it and make it again every week, and she cleans the cat pans. I keep an accurate bank ledger to the penny to take care of our finances, she schedules vet appointments and doctor appointments for us.

I could go on, but my point is that Daisy does a lot, and likely does far more than I do in the grand scheme of things to keep this household running at the forefront. What I do is mainly the upkeep and maintenance work in the background on a great many things. Daisy is active, and I am passive. I couldn't do the laundry (a background task) if I didn't keep us stocked in detergent and fabric softener (also another background task) for example. And occasionally roles do change and/or reverse. There are rare occasions that I cook dinner and do all the dishes, rare occasions where I vacuum or clean the toilets or kitchen, or clean the litter pans -- and I do admit that all of those things are rarer than she or I would like. There are also times where she mows the grass, too, or does a load or two of laundry (I jokingly refer to this as "job theft"). 

She and I got into a dispute last week when I told her I buy about 60% of the weekly/monthly groceries and necessities for the household -- she was not having that. But the truth is, she mostly buys produce and stuff to cook for meal planning for the week -- stuff we both eat, yes, but is mostly for her (either physically or spiritually). And she usually goes to a grocery store, whether it's Whole Foods or Trader Joes or somewhere else, about 2-3 times a week to get all of those items in the moment, which can get expensive and frankly I think inflates psychosomatically the amount she gets with the percentage of what she gets. 

Meanwhile, I'm in the background making sure all of the cats have enough canned and dry cat food and treats, that we have laundry detergent, soap, dish soap, fabric softener, dishwasher pods, washing machine cleaner, other cleaners as necessary, bread, chips, salsa, some sauces and dressings, a fair amount of baking supplies for her including but not limited to various flours and meals, butter, many gallons of distilled water for her CPAP and sinus rinsing, about half the paper towels, almost all canned vegetables and soups other than beans and tomatoes, vitamins, most over the counter medications (ibuprofen, antacids, allergy pills, NyQuil, etc), her chewing gum, her ice cream bars, tissues, light bulbs, glasses wipes, batteries, most fake meats, roughly half the coconut water, almost ALL of the food I eat that isn't part of her meal planning...

AND. And. Every streaming service but one of them (Hulu) is my responsibility too. Would I classify them as groceries? No, but are they commodities as much as laundry detergent and tissues are? Yes. 

So she gets a lot of actual food, actual groceries. I get a lot of actual food and almost everything else. The big exceptions to this rule are toilet paper, cat litter, and our vegan milk -- she gets those auto-ordered and delivered and I don't necessarily count those as "weekly/monthly" purchases that are intentional -- they come on a schedule. But she does get those too.

But this is a microcosm of marriage, my friends -- there are lots of moving parts. Some things that wouldn't work for others will work wonderfully for you. Sometimes you'll have a spat about who buys more groceries and sometimes your wife will randomly bring a new cat home. Sometimes you'll get a burst of energy and do house chores for hours to surprise your spouse and they won't even notice, and sometimes your wife will do her own laundry and you'll get really irritated because it's your job. Sometimes, you'll wash and put away all of your wife's laundry and organize it within her closet in a way that actually makes sense, and she'll be mad about it for days.

I...may be speaking from some experience on some of this. 

My point is -- it's a partnership, and it is work and takes love and patience to maintain. Not every day is going to be great. The first year or so of our marriage was hard. But, if you do it long enough, if you put the work in and perform the upkeep and maintenance, you will have far more great days than bad ones. I've said it before here and I'll say it again -- marrying Daisy was the best decision I have ever made. And it's a continual decision we've made every day for the past ten years.

So, those are my thoughts. For now.

I'll have more to share soon; we have a lot coming up over the next few weeks and months.