Section 1 - Chapter 2 - Where to Start...?

Most biographies or memoirs suggest, by precedent, that you begin at the beginning, at least in my experience. Although I will tell you that I cannot name a single person who I was interested enough in to crack the cover of some glorified story of the ins and outs of his or her life. Tragic that this is what I plan to leave on these pages now. While writing for the soul purpose of self discovery and improvement, it is much more exciting to talk about what is going on now, what might be. However, in order to truly get to the bottom of all of this fun stuff and solve and resolve what I hope to, my patterns, my background, my fundamentals must be vocalized so that i can painstakingly comb through it all, heap needless information into one corner while dusting off those little nuggets of truth that gleam so brilliant and inspect them in a nearly scientific way. So to that end, here is where I came from, lets see if we can get to where I am going.

At the very end of the 70's on the coldest day that year, after 72 solid hours of crying, sweating, pushing, poking and prodding doctors in a suburb of Chicago, finally decided that it might be a good idea to cut me out of the place that I called home for the previous 9 months. I'd like to say that it felt great to be free and have the room to finally stretch my arms and legs after such cramped confines for so longs, but despite my greatest efforts, I can honestly say, I do not remember a single thing! I really can't even say if it was a difficult or painful transition, however my mother, who at the time was 21 years old, occasionally reminds me, it was indeed painful. 

Every time I try to imagine my birth, maybe remember it if possible, I always have the same image in my mind and I doubt that many people would have the same thought. Academically I assume that everyone has a similar thought of, (insert the image of what you mother looks like chubbier, sweaty and beat red) a woman dressed in an ugly floral patterned hospital gown laying on a 45 degree angled hospital bed screaming, while a, (insert the image of a younger version of your father, either excited or terrified looking) man stands next to this woman holding her hand trying not to notice that his finger tips are turning purple because the woman has not stopped squeezing  his fingers in a grip that can only be described as deathlike in over an hour. A masked doctor in surgical scrubs is somewhere between her legs which are tastefully trapped with a hospital sheet for her decency while a nurse wearing a very similar outfit to the doctor stands on the opposite side of your father looking at a monitor that is ticking away a digital account of everything that is going on at the moment.

What I see in my mind as I imagine back to the moment of my birth is the silhouette of my grandfather standing outside of the entrance of the emergency room. He's standing next to a small pickup truck looking up at the hospital while smoking a cigarette. He stands, slowly pulling on a cigarette, it sparks brighter before he removes it from his lips and his hand falls slowly to his side. Smoke plums up from his mouth and dances in swirls above his head making the red and white emergency room sign glow, redirecting the light as it is carried by the smoke. It's strange to me to have that image in my mind, only in the fact that in comparison to other peoples imagined births it is far from ordinary.

I imagine a few days after my birth I was bundled up in as many blankets as my mom could get wrapped around me and brought me home to a small one bedroom apartment where my biological father was waiting. At that time I think that he worked as a car salesman, however I am not entirely sure. While I am sure that the time following my arrival is full of firsts, things that my mother will always hold dear in her mind, I am going to skip over the details and save myself as well as you the bore of what I imagine is a pretty average start to living in this world.

22 months and 12 days following the grand entrance I made into this world my younger and somewhat sicker brother decided to make his entrance. He was born underdeveloped and had severe stomach issues that made it difficult to digest food. He spent some time in incubation before he came home. My recollection is fuzzy at best in regards to this period of time, but I do remember visiting the hospital and being lifted up to a glass window by family to see my tiny little brother while he was being cared for at the hospital.

When my brother came home things changed. In retrospect I'd say things changed for the better, but at the time I doubt that anyone would agree. Now understand that in no way was my brother at fault for anything that happened, he is no more at fault than I or my mother was. However I do believe that the fact that my younger brothers health, his inability to sleep through the night, although it taught me to sleep through anything,  or the fact that he could not keep down a single meal fed to him added stress to a situation that was at a constant low boil waiting to explode.