So I have been more than a little lapsed lately. A lot of it has to do with the changes in both job and having to change-up a little more here and there. I've been working on figuring out what the next six months looks like, unless the world really does end on Saturday, and then it won't be important, will it?
There is a truth that I've been ignoring, and that is while I'm working a bit more steadily on getting back into a creative groove, I'm not necessarily being as focused as I need to be. Part of this is me dealing with issues of the past, and part of it is working towards figuring out what I really, truly want. With that said, a benefit (and a drawback) of the new job is the ability to think, which is never as good as one would think, when the past returns in open reflection.
Nah, I'm not going into the dark places today. I think instead I'll focus on one thing I have as a good memory from the 1985 period. For those just joining the show in progress, my Mom had remarried for the first time, a man who was older and was an alcoholic. Combined with moving to a place where I was effectively a target due to my quiet ways and thick southern accent, there wasn't a lot of good things in my life. On the one hand, I can remember that time very clearly, but on the other, there were a lot of abusive situations that I can't seem to forget. Some day I might go into detail on why I wanted to quit school at 14 because I was honestly afraid to go to school and that I'd either get hurt or accidentally hurt someone else.
So, here is my good memory.
Most of the time, there was little to be happy about. I didn't have a lot of friends (God Bless Bobby Weeks, where ever you are for being one of them), and going home was like navigating a demilitarized zone. I had very little outside of my comics, and I was very very unhappy. Fridays however were one of my only comforts.
Friday afternoons I would walk from my middle school to the nearby pizza place, "Brother's Pizza", which was owned by an Italian family. I would stay in the pizza place for two hours, often getting a slice and a coke and waiting for my Ma to come and get me. I'd play the jukebox, read, work out anything I wanted, and just be. This was my place, and it was so important to me I celebrated my 14th Birthday there. It was quintessential to me, and it was the little thing that helped me keep going.
I've not talked a lot about that time of my life here. Those that know me may not know how awful it truly was. I think that it was the first time I felt completely worthless. There is nothing worse that being 14 and feeling like you have nothing in your life worth having, or worse yet, being alone. Leonard, my first Stepfather, was nothing like Hoyt. Leonard was verbally and emotionally abusive, and ultimately, my mother left him...but it took a while. I think that between not having any support there and being continually abused and bullied at school, it was a real miracle I didn't snap at that moment (but I did do so later in 1985, another story).
Twenty-six years have passed, and yet, I still think of those afternoons in Brother's Pizza, the long Fridays that were my salvation from those parts of my life that were absolutely terrible, the books and ideas I had, and the fact that I was welcome and trusted there. There was something about that place and those times that still give me comfort, and I've not found a place that had as good pizza. I guess we all have those places in our lives, those strange and wonderful safe harbors that make the world a bit more bearable, and shape us for the better if we are lucky.
More Later, I promise.
- M-
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