The Christmas Story

Recently I was reminded of one of the roughest Christmases I was ever privileged to while trying to tell my kids the meaning of the season.
I grew up in Harrisburg publicly poor. There are two different kinds of poor. People you know are poor and people you don't. I have been both during my childhood. We always seemed to lack extra money. Weird how that happens when you are raised by someone who likes to gamble. While Dad was in the army people didn't realize we didn't have much because everyone looked the same. Lived in the same kind of housing, wore the same things, all shopped at the same places and so on. In sixth grade my father, brother and myself moved to Harrisburg to live with my dad's girlfriend. She had money, but that still didn't make it's way down the chain to my brother and I. I had two pairs of jeans and second hand, bright silver wresting shoes. But still more privately poor. Not too long after we arrived in Harrisburg my dad and his girlfriend had a falling out and my grandma came to her baby boy's rescue. So she bought the trailer across from the grade school. Yep. We lived in the trailer across the street. Kind of hard to act like a trust fund child when you walk home to that. So from that point on it wasn't like I was fooling anyone on my financial situation.
December of '95, if I remember correctly, my brother had graduated high school and I was a Junior. Josh moved out post haste and I couldn't and didn't blame him. I was just my dad, my dog and myself. Many of you remember Pretty as the dog who layed in the street and wouldn't move for your car. Or maybe she ran over to the school during lunch to say hello. Perhaps you were at the football game at the high school when I had to chase her off the field before we could start the game. Good dog, but I am off topic. Dad got a call that Grandma had a heart attack. It was the week before Christmas and he was understandably distraught. He left immediately for California to be by her side. Good for him to support his mom like that. Not so fun for me, who was left at home. I had no family in Oregon at the time outside of Josh who was off doing something for the holidays that I can't recall. Mom was in Montana living her life there with my little sister. No Aunts or Uncles or anything like that. Just a newly christened seventeen year old home alone for the holiday.
I needed some kind of tree. So what if it were just the dog and I. A tree was definitely a must have. Ray Crosiar was free that day and a willing accomplice to trespassing and to a minor degree theft, so we went over by Morse Brothers to see what we could see, saw in hand. The trees were all too big to cut down and drag home. One of them had a pretty good looking branch though so we cut it off and drug it to the trailerhood. We kind of wired it up since I didn't have a stand and it looked...well...like a branch wired up. So pretty pathetic. I knew why it looked so pathetic though. No decorations. We didn't have any decorations but being a resourceful youth I did the next best thing. Toilet paper. This was the logical choice because a) I had some (Thank God) and b) it could be reused and my butt would have a nice aroma of pine.
I settled in for my lonesome holiday. Chin up though. I don't remember being sad. I just remember knowing that it was the situation I had to deal with, so I had to just deal. Well I had been going to church for a bit and the family up seventh street had become a favorite of mine to hang out with. Gregg was a good guy who was really nice and Brenda seemed to think that I had a hand in hanging the moon. She also was constantly telling me I should marry her daughter Shannon. Shannon was a fun girl who always seemed to be fun and a bit sarcastic so I didn't mind that. Her little brother Kris was funny and annoying at the same time. Every time he would get me worked up enough to decide to put the hurt on him he would run away though. Well the Skovbo's caught wind of my predicament and asked me to spend the holidays with their family. Normally I would say no to the offer of help. Needing help means being vulnerable and being vulnerable meant being weak and if you are weak you can be hurt. I don't like being hurt. I lied a lot to people to get around them knowing I needed help. "My ride is on the way" "I don't like that movie so have fun but I am good" "I'm not hungry, don't feel well." Well for some reason instead of saying I was too busy wiping my ass with my tree decorations to go to their Christmas stuff, I just took the offer. As I told my kids it was a good Christmas. What did I get that Christmas? Well if we are talking about physical gifts, I got one. Shannon's family was gathered at her grandparents house all opening stuff and out came a gift for me. Much to my surprise. They obviously felt very bad for me and decided to give me a gift that was highly prized. A package of socks. Good thing I was an accomplished deceiver as I told them how much I liked the socks. "Hey white, my favorite color. How did you know?"
At this point both of my kids are silently watching me from the hallway. They are standing in the hallway because that is where they were when I started yelling at them about being ungrateful. Jax sparked the controversy. I told them to give me their non-electronic scaled back Christmas lists. Jax couldn't believe he would be missing out on all the stuff he wanted. He explained how excited he was to get those things at Christmas and also talked about the let down it would be after anticipating it all year. I told him Christmas was about caring for your family more than stuff. His reply stunned me. "Dad, I care about this family every other day of the year. Can't this be the one day I don't?" That is the point I started yelling my Christmas story at them. And that is where they stood as I finished my story about only getting socks.
"You know what though guys?" I said after drilling home the fact that I would rather they just say thanks for coming then pretending the socks were for me. "All I got for Christmas was a pair of socks. And it was the best Christmas I ever had. I spent time getting to know your mother, the girl I was going to marry. Even though she acted like she didn't want me there I know she did. I also got to spend time around a real family. One that loved each other and did real family things. I didn't get that. So although I got a pair of re-gifted socks I was still happy and thankful!"
Taylor welled up with tears as she began crying and telling me she was sorry that I had to spend Christmas like that. Jax, less indignant at this point said he understood now and was fine spending a Christmas that was family focused. I hugged my little girl and felt that sense of great satisfaction that come from knowing you have done your job as a parent. Making your kids to feel guilty about being spoiled.

Three Dog Night

I posted a little status update about this a while ago but I thought that I would expound on it since it has been bouncing around in my head. It is no secret that I was separated from my wife for a while this year. During that time I don't think I have ever done so much self reflection. Dare I say that being separated like that, although not ideal, could very well have been one of the best things that has ever happened to me in terms of forcing me to look in the mirror and be honest about what I saw? I submit that I do dare say such a thing. I personally prefer to never ever look at myself. If you know me then you are well aware that I spend most of my time amusing myself with observations about others. Its easier like that. I will make fun of the way you act or the things you like. Most of the time I do a funny impression of you that you are unaware of. All to keep myself occupied because when left alone in a void with only myself to be with, well then I have to really look at myself and I don't want to do that. When I look in the mirror I rarely see the good. Especially with my birthday rapidly approaching. I see wrinkles by my eyes and on my forehead. Well they are more like crevices than wrinkles. My skin has a lot of flaws. Blemishes if you will. Am I still in junior high? When does that crap go away? And where the hell is my hair? Really? Thanks for nothing Verizon Wireless. You can have my soul just leave my hair. I am trying to grow some on my face but it is more of a wishful thought than a successful venture. Spencer Pratt has more success with his flesh beard than I do with my scraggle goat. But when it is just you left alone in the house of mirrors all you can do is look at yourself. Boy did I do a lot of that. One thing I had to deal with was just how damn lonely I felt. I know we have all heard the song by Three Dog Night telling us that one is the loneliest number. At first thought it seems like you would agree. It would be lonely if you were the only one. No one to talk to or interact with. Like Tom Hanks on castaway you would be making friends out of volley balls and then managing to alienate yourself from sporting equipment too. Let me throw this by you. I thought about this during one of my sadder moments. I was thinking about loneliness and I thought, "That Three Dog Night is full of shit man." One isn't the loneliest number. It is one. One is all it can be and all it ever will be. Unfortunate yes, but one has no choice but to be alone. Real loneliness is when you don't have to be one but you are any ways. I'm not being clear so I am going to metaphor this bad boy for you. I am alone on a dessert Island. Just me and no one else. It sucks because there is no option to talk to anyone else. No option to have contact and interaction and stimulation from another person. That bites. Now one day, another person washes up on shore. You are in absolute elation as you realize you don't have to be alone anymore. You run to your hut and start planning on making bunk beds, that way there will be so much more room for activities. No longer will you have to sing both parts to that Kid Rock and Cheryl Crow song. Finally you will be able to find out if your curve ball is unhittable. This is going to be great! So you run over to your new found friend and eagerly introduce yourself. "Hello, my name is Jeremiah and I am a cast away. Pleased to meet you good person. May I take your coat?" No response. Well that's odd but perhaps this individual does not speak the same language. This will be even cooler because we will teach each other our native tongue and come up with some kind of hybrid language that only we will know and no one else. Like those twins do. It will be like on that movie "Enemy Mine". As we learn each other's language and culture the universe will learn from us and finally have peace. "Hola Heffe, mi llama es named Jonesey, bueno tu meet tu. Er um... Can I take your coat?" The person is looking right at me but not responding. Deaf? Let me try hand signals. Wave, um, thumbs point at myself, one thumb stays pointing at me while the other points up. Now I point at the person with one hand and also give the thumbs up. Now I do the, here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people..... Nothing? Really? So they aren't a foreigner and they aren't deaf. Blind? Fake Punch! Ha you flinched. Not blind! Ha! Wait. That means this person is just.... ignoring me. I try and try to make them interact with me but the ass just won't. Now I wish they had never washed up on my shore. I made bunk beds. We aren't even staying on the same side of the island. Now this is loneliness. Every minute of every day I am reminded that I don't have to be alone. That if they would just talk to me, acknowledge me or anything then I would have contact and the loneliness would be gone. But since jackass mute arrived I have had to carry my loneliness like a lead suit. Poorly tailored lead suit. You know where the coat is too long and it makes you look short? Yeah a lead suit like that. Makes my ass look big too. Insult to injury right there. So now I long to be alone again. It was easier like that. No constant reminder that there could be some one to finish "I saw you last night at the hotel......I said, I saw you last night at the hotel....... Come on pal. Throw me a bone! How can you not chime in? Marco......MARCO!!!!" This person is unflappable. Anyway, I wish I were alone again. See? One isn't the loneliest number after all. At times it has felt like that in my own relationship with Skovbo. It has gone both ways too. At times each of us has been the one not acknowledging or validating the others existence in our lives. When we were separated it felt unbearable at times. You had to fight the want to just be left alone on the island rather than be on the island with someone else and blocked out. Like I said, it was a mutual isolation, like north and south korea. With everyone we know Rodney King'ing us...."Why can't we all just get along?!" But it really made me feel as lonely as I have ever felt. More lonely than I felt was even possible. No Three Dog Night, you say two can be as bad as one. I submit that it can be far worse. Far worse but also, infinitely better.

The OCD Project

I am watching this show on VH1 called the OCD project. It is all about people with arthritis. I kid, it follows the treatment of OCD patients. It is crazy what some people allow their brains to let them believe to their own detriment.

My fav is the, "I can kill people with my thoughts" guy. He is all sorts of freaked out that his thoughts are going to harm people. Wracked with guilt over this great power he is compelled to seek treatment. I have to tell you something buddy, if I really, I mean really thought that my brain beams could mess people up.....One thing comes to mind. It ain't guilt either. Its SWAGGER. Hell I would have more swagger then Little Wayne. Why feel bad?! I would feel totally superior. I would be on the phone right now with my big brother screaming "That spill in the gulf. the one that is destroying everything, yeah you know the one. I did that because you were an ass to me. Way to go Josh. You killed crawfish and ruined Jon Lemond's Jambalaya. If you even think about screwing with me again you're next!" The practical applications would never cease. "Taylor Jones, you don't have to eat your veggies, but I am sure the famine I cause in Africa because of that will make you think twice." Mind beam famine power enabled!

There is no OCD thing I wouldn't enjoy having. Germ girl, why is she sad? A girl who never has to clean?! Us guys have been loving that for eons. Repetitive person who has to do something over and over, I have to force myself to do that. Its called the elliptical. How awesome would that be if I couldn't stop. Am I right or am I right?

The best person on the show is jack ass therapist guy. He gets to get paid to legally torture people. Its like a license to waterboard. "Shelly, I know you are afraid that if you see yourself in the mirror, bloody marry will jump out and steal your soul. Well open your eyes because you are in a women's changing room! More mirrors than on a disco ball! Oh Shelly yes! Slamming your head in that mirror is you telling bloody Mary to go away for good. Shelly....Shelly...Somebody get a mop. And a new Shelly." Therapist guy couldn't believe that when he put Masochist as a qualification on the application that it was the hook that got him the job.

I just hope next season they have someone who has OCD about not wanting to be on a reality show. Ooooh ooooh even better...and I just thought of this. How about people who have OCD about wanting to be on a reality show? Oh wait, they already have that. It's called The Hills! Zing!

I think we all have it to some degree. Something our brains make us do, that makes no sense, that inhibits our lives or hurts us. I'm talking to you stalker guys and dolls. Yeah you know who you are. You like someone, and then your OCD comes out. You think that by trying to drive away anyone from the opposite sex and by following them and freaking the F#@% out when you see them within a city block of the afore mentioned opposite sex, that they will love and appreciate you for it. They tell you to stop being insane but you just can't. Instead you wind up with another restraining order for the 'ol dart board. Maybe you are the- can't help but look in every mirror I walk past girl, or has to eat everything on their plate separately guy. We all have a little crazy in us. What's yours?

When the battle seems lost

First of all I would like to say this will be probably the longest blog I have written. For me probably the most, um, I want to say important, maybe meaningful, but I guess the most real. I am talking to myself here but feel free to listen in on my conversation. Its boring too. Be forewarned.

I don't like the Buffalo Bills. When they went to four million superbowls in a row I hated them. Mainly because they were in the AFC and everyone knows the Oakland Raiders should be superbowl bound every year. One game the Bills played struck a chord with me though. January 3, 1999 the Bills in a playoff game are losing to the Oilers by a staggering 32 points. Their starting Quarterback Jim Kelly was hurt. They had every reason in the world to quit. It was out of hand. Instead they register the single greatest comeback in NFL history. They didn't quit, even though no one comes back from 32 down.

The reasons a game like that strike a chord with people are obvious. Everyone loves a come from behind underdog type of situation. I know I do. For me I guess it represents more than a feel good story. It represents the will to compete when losing is almost a surety. I grew up with the deck stacked against me. Mom and Dad fought. Not like Mom gives Dad the cold shoulder type fighting, but Mom yelling for someone to call the police because Dad is going to kill her type fighting. Life 7-Jeremiah-0. Then we moved a lot. Klamath Falls, Alaska, Monterey California, Sacramento, Victorville, San Diego-Victorville-San Diego, Alpine Oregon, Monroe then Harrisburg. It made a shy young man like myself learn that relationships are temporary and not to let anyone get closer than arms length. Why would I? Soon I would be gone and they would be a distant memory. Life 14-Jeremiah-0. In the mean time my parents finally divorced and it allowed Mom to pursue her pot and Dad to spend time gambling. The low point was after my brother had moved out and my Grandma had a heart attack. I was left in the trailer to celebrate my Christmas as a teen alone. I cut down a tree branch and propped it up. Threw some toilet paper on it as a garnish and called it good. Life 21-Jeremiah-0. I was lucky enough to have a family to spend time with that Christmas, my future in-laws the Skovbos with their daughter who did not want me there. I got a package of socks from their family, a gift obviously meant for someone else that they threw my name on because they felt bad for me. I score a fieldgoal for not being totally alone so if you are keeping score its Life 28-Jeremiah 3.

Dad got a girlfriend and moved to Corvallis so I asked a family to let me stay with them. They agreed. Dad moved back to town to get back together with a lady who hated me and he asked me to move back in with him. Life 35-Jeremiah 3. Down by 32. It didn't work out and I moved back in with the Oakes family to finish out high school there.

Through it all though I never had the spirit of a quitter. I just could not, could not accept the fact that I was resigned to lose. That I was so far behind that giving up was the right thing to do. It can be hard to kick against the goads I hear. I always hated losing anyway. Didn't matter if it was football or who was first in the lunch line I wanted to win. I was a super sore loser too. I hated to lose. When I moved to Harrisburg I got put on the worst baseball team we had. We lost all the time. I made the All Star team. My team may have lost a lot but I just couldn't quit. I could not accept the fact that I couldn't effect my circumstances by working hard, competing relentlessly and if I was going to lose I was going to lose knowing that I gave it all I had to give. Hell I got a pencil in the shape of a gavel given to me for being the best debater in class. I wouldn't even give up in an argument.

Then I decided to marry my highschool sweetheart Shannon. Life 35-Jeremiah 10. We were young and crazy and fought like hell, but I had married someone who had a spirit like mine. Neither one of us was willing to give up. It caused us to fight so long we forgot what we were fighting about and at the same time we loved so hard that we couldn't be separated. I thought at that time my future was working with youth in church. I was driven to succeed and make sure my life had purpose, reason and worth. Life 35-Jeremiah 17.

The church was called Crossfire and it had a dynamic Youth Pastor. Pastor Aaron was driven like me and worked relentlessly to see his ministry succeed. I fit in well when working to help him reach that goal. He moved to Senior Pastor and his promises followed to many in the church about how we would all work toward the greater good. Over time though I saw something that didn't line up right with my inner purpose. You could not succeed at the church unless you were willing to give up to whatever Aaron wanted. I am sorry if you are reading this and disagree. Feel free to do just that. I am speaking from my perspective, which may not be your own. I didn't give up. I just couldn't. I couldn't be the person that relied on the pastor for everything I received. I watched people give up their fighting spirit to live off of what they thought was faith, but what, in my opinion, was living off the church. The pastor wanted for absolutely nothing, however everyone fed from the scraps off the table. I couldn't just give up and think that my life boiled down to hand me down prosperity from someone who could not handle my fighting spirit. So I made the move and left. I left to go make a living that provided for my family. The church needed me to be the loser, even though the scoreboard didn't reflect it, and they let everyone know I was an adulterer and thief. It's their perspective and they are welcome to it. Reality is there was no infidelity and no money taken and I have since gone on to be very, very blessed in my pursuit of career stability. Life 35-Jeremiah 24.

Well here I stand. I have come from behind but the game is far from over. I just don't know how to quit though. I just can't. If I do quit, I know that the Jeremiah that I know will wither away. Sometimes that fact that I refuse to just throw in the towel when I am doomed to fail can frustrate and anger people but I guess I am Apollo Creed telling Rocky not to throw it. If I die, I die. But I do it my way. I go down swinging. If I am willing to fight over nothing you should know I will fight like hell when there is everything on the line. I'm a fighter. To my very core. If in the end I am the Bills and come from behind for a victory then I am remembered a champion. If I am like Leonidis in 300, and fight a losing battle, then hopefully I will be remembered as someone who never gave up. Someone who bloodied a few lips and cracked a few heads before being overpowered in the end.

Like I said, I am talking to myself. Like a timeout for a pep talk I needed to remind myself of who I am. What I am. I have to be me. I may seem stupid, I know I am still behind but at least I have my second wind. No humor here. You are due a refund if you read this blog under false pretense.