LIFE 2 - CHAPTER 4: Laurelton Living/Plantings of Bad Harvest Part 1

Life 2 - Chapter 4 - Laurelton Living – Plantings of a Bad Harvest.

A lot has happened to me since the time that I lived with my father in Laurelton. And during those teenage years where I lived with my father, I remembered more than I had expected to. Unfortunately most of my memories were negative ones. This was pretty alarming to me because although I am the keeper of my own life’s experiences, I no longer am the person that I was back then. Back when I was a child, I could tell you that I was a perfect kid, and if I wanted to lie to you even more today, I could have also told you that I was wrongfully victimized by both my mother and father.

Yes. It’s true. I did not have an easy childhood. There are not many of us that have. Regardless of who we are, where we live, or from what financial ground we are raised from, there is no one that I know of that has had an easy time growing up. Still, the next few chapters of my life will be a bitter pill to swallow, because looking back at who I was makes me feel ashamed of myself. Ashamed primarily, because I now realize how much I, like so many of us in life, took things for granted. Back then, I never appreciated the things that I had. Instead, I was quick to judge for the things that I lacked.

And these things for which I lacked, or at least felt that I lacked, were things that I would later use to cement my reasons why I had continued to fail, why things got messed up afterwards and how convenient it was to push the burden of responsibility to others instead of accepting my failures as 100% my own.

Even today, it would be very easy for me to blame my past on my current and future failures. Sadly, I think I represent the majority when it comes to this type of thinking. Many people have used the expression ‘that the past comes back to haunt them’. I say that this is only true, if we allow it to be. For many years in my life, I’ve fallen, and have blamed the shortcomings of my parents as valid reasons, the vehicle if you will, for my own results thereafter. Nobody’s life is easy, regardless of the perception. I can tell you by looking back at my past, that it would seem that all my friends around me had it better than me. Perhaps. Or perhaps, I kept comparing my own situation to others until I found someone else who situation was better than mine, just to justify the persecution of my parents. To allow myself to wipe my hands clean of responsibility, as if the failures were beyond my control.

Regardless of whether my upbringing was somewhat less-than-stellar, it wasn’t all that bad. My parents tried. They are not perfect as they surely knew that I was not either. My father took me in when I was no longer wanted by my mother. He put a roof over my head, and he clothed me. He paid for my braces, and all of my medical bills.

What was lacking therefore, was perhaps the compassion to understand all the dynamics of my father and stepmother at that time. Unfortunately, compassion comes with maturity, of which I had neither. Instead, I put all my parents and step-parents in a glass house, with the anticipated expectation of failure. And of course, and in my mind back then, they failed miserably.

The cycle that ensued thereafter was vicious indeed. The more I felt they had failed me, the more I became intolerant of my situation. And the more intolerant I became, the more I was punished for my attitude. And the more I was punished for my attitude, the more I felt they failed me. It had no end, but mostly, it served no one.

Many times a lack of communication or a failure to listen or even plain ‘ole indifference will create that kind of an atmosphere. I was just a kid, but I was not a dumb kid. Even if I felt that my parent’s brand of parenting was insufficient, I should have played the ‘game’ at the very least, instead of being so blatantly opposed to the way of life.

Initially, I had thought to sugar coat my experiences by just offering you (the reader) the facts of what had taken place along with my explanation, i.e “outer-wrapping”, of what my parents were trying to achieve. But since this story is my story, giving you a guesstimate as to what others had felt would be speculative at best, and completely missing the point at worst. Regardless of whether my sentiments back then were justified or not is irrelevant. It is important that you see the cause-and-effect of those times, to see how I felt with the situation at hand. It is important for my character construction (or perhaps assassination), that you see what one’s feelings can lead to, good, bad, ugly, or otherwise.

But enough introspection. Enough with me explaining to you how I was wrong despite feeling righteous in reacting the way I did over things that “befell” me nearly 30 years ago. The forewarning of the dicey language and emotions that will be adorning the next few chapters or so will be on the borderline of the ugly, and sometimes beyond that. After reading you might feel a sense of anger, pity, sympathy, apathy, or even what-the-fuck?, towards me. Or perhaps all of the above. Like I said, I’m not painting anyone (especially myself) in any color other than the colors I saw to be true.