Ten Years

10 Years ago today, I made the drive from Modesto, CA to Salem, OR. It was a one-way trip. I have now been up here for 10 years.

I remember being very hopeful about the move. I really was not too sad about leaving. I knew there was no way I could stay, and even if I did, there was nothing left there for me. The few people I considered friends by then were going to be leaving as well. Actually, I should take that back. They were friends, and I wish I had been able to say good-bye properly before I left. I never did see them again, and a few of them had been friends for years.

So, not counting the people I knew I would miss(and expected to see again at the time), I felt nothing for what I was leaving behind. I was leaving people that were either no longer friends or never were to begin with, an ex I had told I hated and never wanted to see again the night before, and a city that I could not stand living in. So why should I not be hopeful? I had made an online "contact" that I was hoping would go somewhere(not what you are thinking), and would be starting school very soon.

The move itself was easy. We loaded up my car and my mothers van with my stuff and drove up to the house my grandparents bought. When I left Modesto, I listened to a Pigface CD. I thought listening to weird music would help me deal with any emotions I may have had while driving away, but there were none.

It didn't take long to get a job, and school seemed ok at first. That online contact never went anywhere so making friends ended up being harder than I thought it would. But other than that, things seemed to be ok.

And then I got pneumonia.

I got over that in a few weeks, and ended up dropping all but one of my classes. I completed the class and got an A, but never returned to school until the following year.

Strike One.

My complete lack of social skills combined with being incredibly shy made making friends an impossible task. The only people I socialized with were people I knew from work.

Strike Two.

I was not adjusting to the climate up here very well, and developed a sinus infection that lasted until August of 1996, when I had to receive surgery to get it taken care of. This, combined with another growing problem, made me incredibly irritable and I never wanted to do anything while I was sick.

STRIIIIIKE THREEEEEE YEEEEER OUT!

I fell into a very deep depression that I didn't get out of until 1997, with reoccuring episodes until 1998. I don't think I actually lived through 1996. I existed, but I was not alive.

Strike four means not only do you really suck at baseball, but you have failed at life.

For the longest time, I thought all the problems I had could have been avoided if I had not taken that 11 hour drive on Thursday Sept. 14th, 1995. Everything that went wrong in my life I blamed on leaving California. In my mind I was convinced that I would not have had the nasty breakup with Lesli, and then suffered the loss of almost all my friends as a result of my attitude afterwards. With that, I would not have had been put into the situation that caused the deep depression I was in for almost 3 years.

But, it was not the move that was the problem. Moving or not, the breakup and loss of friends was bound to happen. I was over the breakup before I moved anyway. While the sickness may have happened, had I been in a better situation at the time, I could have easily gone through it. It probably never would have gotten so bad. And the depression? If I was a smart person, I would have never gotten into that situation in the first place. If I was a smart person, I would have given the few social contacts I made a chance, and things probably would have turned out a lot better for me. Instead, there are a few years of my life that I hate looking at.

It all comes back to me not being smart enough to deal with what is in front of me, and allowing things to get out of hand.

Now, with all this, if I had to go back to June 5th 1995 and do it all over again, would I? In a fucking heartbeat. I would change nothing. NOTHING. I would go through it all over again. The sickness, lonliness, depression, all of it.

Why?

This morning when I woke up and got out of bed, my son sat up on his knees and looked up at me. Tired but wide-eyed, he lifted his arms for me to pick him up. How could I even think about changing that?