Parties. Loud music. Drugs & alcohol. Pranks.

These words are synonymous with: Teenagers.

Once I made it through the pre-teens, I couldn’t wait to grow up.  I was trapped between a toddler and an adult.  Between coloring books and briefcases.  I was misunderstood, angry, lost, attention-seeking, and irresponsible.  I did a lot of things that I look back at now and say to myself, “What on Earth was I thinking?! I must have been high!”

I probably was.. or drunk.

I was already an awkward, barely sociable kid as a pre-teen.  As stated in the previous chapter, I always felt like the oddball who, when ever I actually DID speak to people, they’d look at me like I had three heads – like I was an extra in Star Trek (the original).  When I started high school in a new school district, again.  I had to start over and find my identity.  I paid so much attention to what other people thought of me that I neglected to seek and discover who I was.

So, here goes:

I walked in on the first day of school and everything looked big, scary, and unfamiliar.  I kept to myself and just observed, trying to just blend in and find my classrooms.  I just wanted to make it through alive.

All of my efforts to cloak my movements were thwarted, however, when someone noticed me and said, “Hello. You’re new here, aren’t you?”

I froze.  Then I replied, “Yes, I just moved here.”

There was awkward banter for a bit and then we parted ways and carried on to our classes.  I finished out the day and went home, relieved that it was all over and the ice was broken. This gave me a little shred of hope that I might not be as strange or unapproachable as I thought.  At least for a little while.

There came a day, early in the school year, Freshman year.  A day I would never forget.  I was invited to the first party I would ever attend.  It was a party that took some breaks but never really ended until I was well into my 20s.

It was a Homecoming party and it was hosted by a classmate who, conveniently, lived across the cornfield from me.  I lived in a rural area at the time and we didn’t have blocks.  We had cornfields and measured distance in livestock.  Anyway, I thought about it for a second and figured why not? It would give me a chance to make some friends that I’ll hopefully have for the next four years and will make high school a more enriching experience for me.  I accepted.  I never told my parents that I was going because they most likely would’ve said NO just like I would say if I had a teenaged son or daughter, knowing what I know now.  Lucky for me, they were going out that night.  So, I waited and made my way through the field to the house that would be known as “party central” for years to come.

Before this night, I had never partaken in alcohol.  I could never picture myself drinking or doing drugs or anything like that.  So when I was offered a beverage, there was another crossroads decision that would affect me for the rest of my life.  I reached out and took hold of the frosty bottle and took my first sip.  All of a sudden, as if some magic potion was in it, I felt instantly better about myself and I became a social master.  I was funny.  I was clearly expressing my thoughts into words.  People were lively and actually were listening to what I was saying.  There was a bonfire and everyone was having a good time. I drank more and more until I ….don’t really remember the rest of the night.

I woke up in my bed, so I’m guessing I made it safely through that field and into my parent’s house.  I was sick to my stomach, but WOW what an amazing eye-opening night! Yeah…

I returned to school the following Monday and, to my chagrin, was ignored by most of the people I associated with at the party.  I thought we had a secret handshake that I was missing…or forgot.  Regardless, I pressed on and got through another week of school.  In short, the person who invited me to the first party invited me to one almost every weekend.  The common denominator through all of the experiences was cutting loose and drinking in excess.

Pretty rapidly, I felt a presence inside of me that drove me to chase the feeling I had of being drunk.  What started out as a bi-monthly partyfest became an every-week thing.  I dabbled in smoking pot, but ultimately I wanted to drink and get drunk.  I suppose it was the one thing I found that allowed me to be myself, whatever THAT was.  I continued to feed the demon and it led to worse things.

My parents began to notice that I was behaving differently and started questioning me and becoming increasingly strict.  At the time, this was a huge drag and when they would shorten the leash, I would just break free and leave at will.  Pretty soon, I was disregarding them altogether.  My grades began to suffer.  I became withdrawn and depressed when I wasn’t out partying and “finding myself” and I started behaving recklessly.  My parents grew tired of this and felt that if they can’t control me and my outlandish behavior, then maybe the law can.

At 15, I was given an  ultimatum and put on probation.  Looking back after it’s all over now, I wish I had just done this simple thing.  All I had to do in order to have this lifted was to write in a 1,000 words, an essay about why what I was doing was wrong and how I’m going to change.  Being the bad ass that I was (self-proclaimed at the time and definitely NOT true!) I ignored that assignment and continued down the path I was headed because I was smarter than everybody and I knew what was best for me.  That proved to NOT be the right thing to do and the probation turned into a long process that followed me into adulthood in the form of jail, restitution, fines, rehab, and counseling.

I met with psychiatrists, psychologists, and other counselors.  I was given medication for A.D.H.D. and depression.  This only worsened the chemical imbalance in my brain caused by alcohol dependency and increased my rage and frustration towards anyone in authority.  I was a real punk.  Unhappy and troubled.  I tried to fill the void with those friends I had, art, and music but nothing seemed to get me out of the hole I was digging.  I began to believe that I was crazy and couldn’t break out of living a lie.  My honesty took a backseat to evil and depression and hatred and resentment.  I blamed everyone around me for my problems and I had no idea how I even got into that state of mind in the first place.  I began to lose hope in everything and I kept sinking.

Somehow, I made it through high school with decent grades and pulled myself out of the slump long enough to finish strong.  At the end, I was alone, labeled a criminal, and laughed at by my peers.  This was familiar territory for me and I just took comfort in the fact that the low-lifes I was hanging with would back me up.  They did for a short time, but even they wised up and grew up and I was left again, the sad, awkward, little boy.

I had hopes and dreams when I was attending school.  I wanted to be a lot of things, but I really loved to draw.  I wanted to get into illustration, graphic design, or heck…even be an animator.  Through the fog of evil, I still clung onto my art, each drawing darker and more abstract as my life became strange and obscure.  It was my therapy at the time.  I had a portfolio, but that’s gone now too.  Thrown away by someone who I used to call a friend.  Perhaps it was a message: Let that go and start over.

I never did get a degree from a college.  I worked several menial jobs and crashed on a lot of couches after high school.  I never went to prom.  Can’t say I really care about that anymore.

The only thing I can take away from that whole portion of my life is experience.  I may have made many mistakes that prevented me from succeeding in the scholastic years of my life, but what I lacked in documented book smarts and a degree – I made up for in life lessons.  Lessons that I can share with my children someday so that they never have to live the way I did and make the same mistakes.  I want to teach them about decision-making and staying true to themselves.  There is a reason why I went through what I did and lived.  There is a higher purpose.

In the coming chapter, I will address even more lessons that molded me into the man I am today.  The party didn’t end when high school did.  In many ways, I was only scratching the surface.  With every passing year, everything changed.  Some for better, most for the worst.

Upcoming: Chapter 3 – Post-Apocalyptic Early 20s

I remember being a happy kid.  I have the greatest parents I could ever have been born to.  They sacrificed and took care of me and I usually got whatever I wanted.  I also was taught values and lessons that proved to be useful – when I used them.  I was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  Although I don’t remember a whole lot from my very early childhood, I can remember bits of memories in the form of emotions and I remember swallowing a penny or something like that.  Whatever it was, it’s out of my body now.

When I got a little bit older, maybe 4-5 years old, my parents and I moved to New Jersey.  I started attending pre-school and I remember meeting other kids for the first time.  Even as I look back now, I’ve always felt different and not really accepted by people.  Some kids talked to me and we discussed important issues like Legos and crayons.  Most of my social interactions were decent, but I could remember the first occasion I felt any sort of basic resentment.  It was my birthday, I think it might have been my 5th, and I got this Colorform set in a birthday card.  Remember those?  They were like stickers (only they were plastic and peeled off – able to be reused) of favorite characters like Garfield and other popular kids’ cartoons during the mid-80s.  I got the card and I loved it.  We had these little shelves with our names on them at the schoolhouse and I stowed my card away and was going to play with it after my nap.

When I awoke, I went straight to my box and…the card wasn’t there.  I felt a sting of anger and hurt.  Who would do this to me?  This sounds really funny to me now and trivial at best, but back then – you don’t just go around and steal someone’s Colorforms!  I remember this event because it was the first time I ever felt betrayed.  To a kid, that’s a serious wake-up call to a corrosive and very real emotion: Anger.  I felt alone, like everyone was laughing at me.  It was a terrible feeling, and no matter how small it seems now, it was a big deal to me as a child.

That feeling passed quickly, as usual for a child.  The awareness of resentment, however, would prove to be a recurring theme in my life – both in myself, and what I caused for others.

Aside from that negative experience, I found something that I loved: Art & Music.  Creativity.  Singing.  Drawing.  These things were in my blood, given to me by my parents – who were singers and actors.  They influenced me a lot throughout my life and always wanted me to succeed.  They encouraged me to excel in school and to cultivate my talents, mostly in drawing at that time.  So did the rest of my family.

So if I had support and a great family life during my early childhood, why am I talking about resentment and fear?

Well, it’s because they had nothing to do with it.  The fear that developed inside of me was a fear of people and social interaction.  I was shy, nerdy (still am), not very outgoing, and didn’t trust kids because of being teased and bullied.  I found myself making friends with the easiest people I could: the “bad” ones.  They were the only ones who accepted me and I said, “Well, okay! I’ll be your friend!” It made me feel good to have “friends” because I felt alone so often.  I didn’t know how to interact with people and I always felt like the awkward, weird kid who everyone laughed at.  So, I joined the group of awkward, weird kids who everyone laughed at.  At least I wasn’t alone.

After 3rd grade was over, we moved again.  This time to a different city AND state altogether: Pottstown, Pennsylvania.  Now here’s where the fun REALLY began.

My parents and I had to make some adjustments and we made them as well as we could.  We moved into a nice, large home in a nice (at the time) neighborhood in a suburban town.  Things were changing.  I started at a new school and that meant starting over.  While I was finding out who I was, I was looking for new friends.  The first person who talked to me, we’ll call him Mike, became my first friend in that new town.  He lived a block away from me, it turned out, and we had a great time outdoors and making styrofoam airplanes and banging on trashcans in my garage, thinking we were musicians.  We were innovators.

There was another kid, too, who we’ll call Jon.  Now this one was a troubled kid but I was drawn to him out of that inner need to feel accepted.  We did stupid things together, like shoplift candy bars and prank people.  I soon heard the wrath from my parents on that lovely choice and I had to stop being his friend.  Later on down the road, I ended up going to jail and as I was being released, he was going in.  Our roads were separate, but we wound up at the same place – from stealing candy bars, to living behind bars.  I guess that could be considered a reunion, but I’ll get to that in a later chapter.

So, my story starts out simply. I was born, I went to school, I was a loner, I starved for acceptance, I was a people-pleaser, I was good in school, and I was the weird kid who no one could relate to.  Off to a good start, huh?

Little did I know that this was only the tip of the iceberg.  In the following few years, my life would go through another upheaval.

Upcoming: Chapter 2 – The Turbulent Teen Years…Accepted?

To anyone reading this blog -

My name is David.  I am 28 years old, gainfully employed, and I have a lovely, beautiful, talented woman who is very supportive.  Everything I could ever ask for.  Living the dream, right?

All of these things didn’t come easily for me.  Looking back through my life -up until recently- I had a fear.  Well, several fears.  On the outside, I could laugh and enjoy parts of life.  But that nagging fear – the annoying gnat that keeps trying to fly into my eyelash as I fend him off desperately – kept coming back.  In fact, it never went away.

I am not writing this to bring anyone down.  In truth, my intentions are the exact opposite.  I am hoping that my experience is relative to you, the reader, or someone you know who has developed and is enveloped by what frightens them the most.

My revelation is this: When you voice your concerns, your fears, your vulnerabilities – you deplete the force behind what scares you and you can breathe a little easier.  The power is taken from them because you find that you do have a voice and those fears are smaller than you are.  Write your fears down, share them with a trusted person.  Or if it’s people you’re afraid of and you aren’t ready for that road – confide in your pet turtle, dog, cat, iguana, or ferret.  They listen and they don’t judge!

So RELAX!

These forthcoming passages are chapters in my life.  Experiences from which I’ve learned important lessons – both through tragedy and triumph.  May they offer serenity, hope, and positivity.

Enjoy…

Upcoming: Chapter 1 – The Roots Planted

“The Right Side” / David S. Bradford