The Life I Love Part I

Hi. My name is Tim. I am 36 years old and am finally living a life I feel is worth living. I am a pretty avaerge kind of guy, I suppose. Not too tall, not too short. I have been told I am good looking, but I have also been told I am not. I laugh a lot, I love to laugh. During my life, laughter has been the one constant friend I could always count on. Granted, there were times when I had to find it myself, and no one else knew quite what i was laughing about, but I think that's the way it goes sometimes.

I want to give brief history about myself. Unfortunately it has to be brief because in truth I don't remember a whole lot about growing up. My family, mother, father, two older sisters and one older brother (yes I am the baby) moved around a lot when I was young. At least I consider it a lot. My parents found work where they could, which meant we moved. I hear horror stories about children of military parents who have been forced to move 4-5 times, and I chuckle. Oregon, Idaho, Washington, North Carolina, California, Florida, Montana, Arkansas, Arizona...I've held some kind of residence in all these places before I was 16. Some states we lived in more than one town.

I am not complaining. They did what they knew how to do. They raised us the best they could. Sure there were times we were hungry, but I don't think there was ever a time we went without food. Even if it was just bologna and cheese sandwiches. No, I am not complaining, I don't waste my time pretending that it has fractured my delicate mental quality. I love my parents and tehy love me, and life is life.

What I am saying though is that growing up with that seemingly habitual rouine of moving has taken something from me I think most people have. And that is the ability to hang on to certain things. Things, places, even people, more directly friends, became less important to me, since I knew that chances are I wouldn't know them for more than a year or so. I was young. I dind't understand then that that is a way of life anyway. People come and go, and you should cherish the time you have with them, even the ones you don't like. All I knew really was 'I have friends, my firends are gone, I have no friends, I have friends again, my friends are gone again'.

I coped with these changes by moving on. Pushing those thoughts of where I came from from my mind, and only seeing where I was. The problem was that I was a child. 'Moving on' meant something entirely different then the wisened know. It meant leaving behind. This repeated 'leaving behind' left me with an almost inability to recall previous experiences. I can now, quite literally if I attempted to do so, sit down and count the exact number of memories I have before entering the 6th grade. I never lerned how to train and practice long term memories. I had no need. The people I would never see again, the places were on the other side of the country. I had a hard enough time trying to fit in where I was.

The other draw back was that, because I was a kid and emotional, most of the slivers of memeories I have tend to be not of a fun and delightful nature. I naturally enough remember mostly the bad parts. Not because there were so many, but because dealing with hurts and pains and disappointments help us define who we are at young ages. It's called growing up. I have happy memories too. but I would say it's four bad to one good. I would like to make it clear that teh bad are in no way horrendous, just...bad.

I would have to say the worst 'side effect' of it all came when I was in 8th grade. We had lived in the same place for over a year, and I had been going to the same Jr. High school for over a year. It wasn't far away; two blocks over, two blocks down. Can't get easier than that, unless it was only one block. Well, I went to sleep one night,e verything just fine. But when I woke in the morning, I noticed something was wrong. It started out normal enough. I was woke by my mother. I stood and started to get dressed. Halfway through putting my clothes on I realized I had no idea why I was getting dressed. What was I doing? I was putting on my pants, sure, but what came after that? I didn't know. I don't think anyne really noticed what was wrong. It probably just looked like I was having a bad day. Everything seemed foreign to me though. Not my family, but everything else. When I finally stepped outside, I had no idea where I was. I knew I was home, but I dind't know where that home was. I was standing on gravel and I had no idea where I was supposed to be going. School. But where was that? Nothing, absolutely nothing, looked familiar. The houses were all new, the ground was all new, I didn't know north from south, nothing.

I turned around and even the front of my own house looked strange. I had never been there. I walked a little ways, but nothing was familiar. I eventually went back inside, since I dind't know where to go, and was able to convince my mother something was wrong. That I didn't know.

When I did get to school, it was nearly the same thing. I had a very vague impression of the classes. People, friends, seemed new to me. I didn't know my own friends. I didn't know acquaintences from close friends. I didn't know teachers. I didn't know a lot. I don't remember what happened the rest of that day. I think I just went thorugh the motions, trying to pay attention and hoping no one noticed I was a freak of some sort.

That was the worst time. I had to relearn my life. That wasn't fun. Talk about feeling like an outcast. Alone.

I have had a couple episodes like this, only the others were no where near as harsh. I would wake up and the last three days would be gone, or maybe a week or two. It's only happened maybe four times, but it has taught me one thing that i hope I never lose. I am me, no matter how much of the outside world I forget. My heart is my own, it is not dependant on the world around me. My mind is my own, it is not dependant on the world around me.

If you take away the world, who are you? I know the answer to that question now. I don't think many do. That's not to say I like the answer, I am just saying I know it.