On playing Dress up

            I was a teenager in the late 90’s. I was a bit of a nerd or the Goth Punk variety.  I had a Mohawk, painted my nails, wore black etc. One of my favorite things to do was to game with my friends. By game I mean getting together with my friends, writing out characters to role-play and then play out in our imaginations what we were doing. It was pretend on a whole other level. We didn’t see it as that, no of course not. These aren’t dolls! They’re G.I. Joes!

            My favorite game was by a company called White Wolf. They had a game called The World of Darkness. It was essentially earth, only darker. Every monster you could think of was real and it wanted to eat you. It was all of my favorite monsters in one place and you could play one.

            My friends played this game quite often for years. It would be what we ultimately would obsess over when we started L.A.R.P. That stands for Live Action Role Playing. This is taking pretend to the next level above what we were doing. You basically take a game of dress up; add a bit of theatre and a gallon of nerd sweat. Ok maybe two gallons of nerd sweat.

            We would travel to other towns to play this. It was every weekend. Bloomington, Terra Haut, Indianapolis etc. I even occasionally traveled to Chicago and competed in contests. I won once for the most grotesque costume. I’d taken four rubber gloves and put them on both of my hands, then added Vaseline in between them so when you shook my hand it literally went *squick* and stuff moved. I rolled around in mud and dirt and other foulness for a while too to get my clothes just right. It was right down disgusting.

            I remember the first time I showed up to one of these events. It was a group of my friends and a bunch of college students. We were all underage and had NO idea what the “rules” where. Before the game had even started, I walked up to who would become a very good friend; and started conversing with him in character. You see my friends being jerks told me the game had started. So when I walked up to him and started role-playing he looked at me like I was retarded and said that the game hadn’t started yet.

            I felt pretty silly and embarrassed. Here I was a teenager with all these really cool adults playing pretend dress up monsters. I thought I was making a complete tool of myself, but what I hadn’t realized was, we were playing pretend dress up monsters. We were all ridiculous nerds and having a good time with it all.

            It was a better alternative to what my other friends were doing. Which was a lot of drugs, committing crimes and getting each other pregnant. So being a nerd was a much better approach to being a teenager in the late 90’s. I mean, I wasn’t shooting up my school; I was playing dress up with my friends and I was pretty good at it too.

The tell-tale signs of the scream of the butterfly

            This is going to be a short one today. I’ve battled rage all of my life. Little things would set me off. When my temper was set off, then watch out. Most of the men in my family are that way. We all cool off over time eventually, but when we’re young we’re almost uncontrollable.

            I can remember one time in particular when I’d lost my temper. My now good friend Nate Hargis had said something, I don’t remember what exactly, I think I thought he said chink, but I really doubt that now. At any rate, I lost it and flew at him in a blood curdling rage. My brother, who was used to these and consequently twice my size did his patented “pin my older brother to the ground”. It was a very effective pin. On this day, an additional friend (Jason Hall I believe) assisted because I was becoming very good at bucking Brandon off of me.

            My mother had to call my Uncle Jr. because I’d been in this rage for over an hour and I wasn’t calming down. My uncle was the only adult in the family strong enough to control me. It was ridiculous reader. I was a big kid at 15 and I played football, so I had a little muscle.

            When my uncle finally made it over he looked at me and laughed. He told Brandon to let me up and if I started acting crazy to let him handle it. So he let me up and I started crying. I blubbered like a baby, because I had been beat. That was the key to my rage; I had to be constantly fighting in order to keep it going. Once they quit, I was beat.

            My friend and I occasionally laugh about this story, or about the time I “accidently” cut him. Yeah, he’s still got a scar on his hand. I’m telling you this story today though for a reason. I feel that anger coming back. It scares me. I have red dots on my arms and legs and all over my body from when I would lose my temper and fly into a rage. They’re broken blood vessels or blood trapped in the skin. I don’t want to be that kid ever again. Rage, while it can serve its purpose, is not something I want to participate in any more. To much of my life has been spent fighting someone or something.

I want to be at peace

My principles

            I had unique principles taught to me as I was growing up. I had the principles my mother was teaching me, which was racial equality, justice, to stand up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves, and to help a stranger when I could. I had another strong influence growing up, which were my grandparents. They were old school and raised me as such.  Some of their principles were, love your country, do what you were told, be quite but speak up, respect your elders and read your bible.

            These fundamental principels were the basic foundations to my shaping as I grew up. To the point that I remember being very young and not realizing that my best friends were black. What did that mean to be black? What was skin color? Sure they went to a different church, but so did my cousins. In this situation ignorance truly is bliss.

I spoke of standing up for others earlier; this is one of the principals that today I will get very emotional over. If I see an injustice being done so an elderly person or someone mentally incapable of understanding what’s going on, I lose my mind in rage. I literally hulk out. It’s one of the craziest responses I’ve ever seen. I just want to take all the elderly and mentally challenged people of the world who have no one to care for them and put them on a farm somewhere and just let them run around and live their lives. No but seriously, I want to save all those people and personally give them all the attention they want/need.

It’s funny, I feel especially close to my grandparents, but some of their principles are the ones I struggle with the most. Such as, read your bible and do what you’re told. I really dislike doing both of those, I do them when prudent, but I really dislike doing either. Unless I’m willing, you can’t tell me what to do. Ever. I struggled with this in the military obviously and struggle with it at school today.

One of my favorite instructors, Mary Ferdon; had a policy of no hats in her professional writing class. I understand why she made the policy and it’s a sound thought process that I agree with, but I hate to be told what to do. I love wearing my hats as every body knows. As my friend John would say, DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO NARC! I did as instructed, but at great difficulty.

I will occasionally read the Christian Bible for leisure. It’s generally boring to me even when I read it for it’s historical perspective. I feel compelled to read it because it was something instilled in my as a young child growing up, to the point that we have 3 or 4 bibles in the house. My wife and I are both Atheists and my kids are kind of undecided. We’re encouraging religious exploration. My son seems to be leaning towards Christianity and my daughter seems to be leaning towards Wicca.

I’m at odds with my daughter believing in magic. I went through that phase, but I can’t help having an issue with it. It was part of my upbringing. It’s funny that now that I’m an adult and I instruct my children in life I default to that which I was taught. I count myself lucky in the principals that I learned. I think I received a fair mixture of instruction, one that I am happy to pass on to my children. Well, except the reading your bible part. I think I’ll let them choose that for themselves.

On my own

            When I was 17 I left home. My mothers third husband Jim was a raging alcoholic who was hell bent on destroying Brandon and mines life. I thought Lewis was bad, but this dude was a quack. It was like my Mom was hell-bent on finding the worst piece of crap husband she could find. Jim had taken the cake so far.

            The night I left I went to the closest person who could help me, Dori Trimnell. She was a really nice lady, and hated Jim to boot. I think if I’d asked her she’d have shot Jim and claimed self-defense. She wouldn’t let us live with her, but she said she would help us any other way she could and I was glad for that. She offered kind words and advice, which is what I needed.

            I was going to be 18 in a few months so I had decided I’d move out and if my Mom was adamant on keeping me home until I was 18 then I would file for an emancipation. If my mother wanted to be in an abusive relationship then I couldn’t stop her, but I was NOT going through that crap again. Lewis was gone and I hadn’t had to deal with him in a few years. I wasn’t about to go back into another situation like that.

            So I called on my friend Isaiah Hawk. He and his mother took me in. Brandon was too young to leave so he would have to return home. I was glad to have a place to stay. The following morning I woke up and was heading to school when I had the sudden realization that I had no money. Debbi fed me breakfast and offered me lunch money. I felt so ashamed for taking money from someone else’s mother, but I didn’t know what else to do. Isaiah and I went and found jobs that week.

My mother never reported me as a run away. I don’t think the police would have returned me either as I was 17. I let my dean and the school know that I was living on my own as a minor and would need help with money for books, lunch and Prom. My dean, for the only time in his life; was understanding and even helped me through the process. The Vice Principal even helped me fill out the paper work for some of the stuff I needed. Some of my teachers eventually learned what was going on and helped me.

I reported the abuse I had received from Jim to the school, but nothing was ever done. I don’t know that the school took it seriously honestly. I admit I wasn’t the model student, but I wasn’t a liar either. I had lived with a violent person who was abusing my mother and my siblings and there was nothing I could do about it. No one would take me seriously.

After I had turned 18 I moved back home to help my brother. My mom was moving out with Jim soon, but my brother and I would remain with my grandparents to help care for them. It was probably the worst year of my life. I’d moved away from home as a minor, I wasn’t seeing my girl friend except at school and my grandfather would die on prom night. I would confront Jim eventually after he hurt my mother. It was the first time I’d stood up to him. I had a pair of brass knuckles and chased him out of the house. My mom defended him later. They moved out shortly after that.

It was a terrible time period in my life, but it also helped shape the person I am today. I don’t know that I would trade those experiences away for others. I gained two mothers from the experience. Thank you Dori and Debbie.