xaviervworld-blog

[xaviervworld-blog]

Three Windows of Life: Memoir

My earliest memories as a child are looking through an old window in our apartment building from the second floor. The blue curtains swayed from side to side as I could feel the spring breeze with my window that was slightly ajar. My parents were afraid that I would eventually try to prove that I could fly, so my window was rigged to only open a few inches. My twin bed was near the window on one side of the wall, while my baby brother’s crib was on the opposite side of the room. All of the apartments were so close, that I could clearly see into our neighbor’s kitchen from my bedroom window. I spent hours playing with all of my matchbox cars in my room or watching all the muscle cars driving down the street. I could see people walking on a nearby dirt path which was made into the neighborhood trail. As I look back, my brother must’ve thought I was his personal entertainment as I focused on making him laugh during all times of the night. My mother worked all day, came home and cooked, then stayed up half the night with my brother. Through my young mind, I thought I could help my parents out by climbing into my brother’s crib (if he woke up at night) in order to help my brother, go back to sleep. Sometimes I helped find his pacifier, pulled his blanket over him, or turned my bed into a trampoline, so he would laugh his way back to sleep. I can remember the day my feelings changed toward my entire family, as my preschool teacher whispered into my father’s ear that I was sleeping all day and failed to participate with any of the class work. My father was a big disciplinarian, so he believed that a few of my actions could be corrected with a belt, switch, or whatever was within reach. He didn’t realize that as my brother woke up at night, I tried to console him, so my mother didn’t have to get up at night. One day I forgot to climb out of my brother’s crib and was abruptly awakened by my father and his brown leather belt. I felt completely misunderstood, angry and alone. I focused on looking at all the cars pulling into the small apartment complex. As I look back, I remember seeing cars or trucks parked in the parking spots, half way on the sidewalk, some were in the grass, some were backed in, in this tiny parking lot for our apartment building. All of the oil spots that stained the parking lot seemed normal, as we walked outside and down to our car.  As I looked out the window in my bedroom there was always men and women, some were married or single gathering in the parking lot of the apartment complex, wearing the same uniform. A uniform with the same color shirt, the same color pants, the same boots and hats, and the same chains around their necks. All of these people, including my father were active duty soldiers in the military, trying to earn a living for themselves or their families and protect our country. Sometimes the stress of those everyday demands of my dad’s job as a soldier, felt as though it was aimed at me, my mom, and my brother.

I felt that I had one of the most fun childhoods that a young kid could have but as I look back on the whole situation I feel as if there were a lot of good lessons that I learned and some lessons I didn’t learn until I got older. When you’re a child you may feel as if you should challenge things that your parents would say or do because you might not agree with anything they have to say. I challenged my bed time as a kid because I could still see kids playing outside, while looking through my window. I could still hear the music playing from the cars in the parking lot on any night of the week. Sometimes my parents went outside to join the “parking lot parties” and other times they didn’t join. I remember asking for popsicles before dinner was ready but most of the time I was turned down. Sometimes I would get up at night and carry my bathroom stool into the kitchen and get the popsicle out of the freezer. As I look back, I don’t know why I did this while knowing that I would get in big trouble if I was caught doing two things wrong. First, getting out of my bed after my bedtime and second getting popsicles that I was told I couldn’t have that day. I asked my mom questions about why I couldn’t have the popsicle. It was hot outside and I had a long day, so I deserved the popsicle.

After we moved into house, I met so many kids in the neighborhood. I was at a new school, new area, and there was a Dollar General right around the corner from our new brick house. I thought I would have my own room, but my younger brother convinced my parents that he was scared to be in a room by himself. The next day I came home from the Boys & Girls Club, there were bunkbeds in our room. I admit, at first, I was pretty angry, but it was good having my brother in the same room. We stayed up late at night, talked about the new neighborhood, and how there were so many kids playing outside until almost midnight. As a young kid, I liked to play all the rough sports inside of school and also sports leagues offered outside of school.  I was one of those kids that saw myself as invincible while playing on any field, such as the football field, baseball fields, or even the basketball courts. When I say “invincible” I’m talking about getting big groups of kids together after school to play tackle football in the fields of our neighborhood. When someone yelled “down, set, hut” we ran at top speeds to obliterate any and everyone who blocked, who held the ball, or anyone that looked like they would help the team score. As a defensive tackle, I remember squaring my shoulders, lowering my hips, and taking the first steps to stay low as possible to get through the blocks. We were a bunch of kids going through puberty, trying to hurt each other just for fun but we loved it. We walked away from the fields laughing, turf burn on our elbows and knees, but we felt like we had just gone to war. We walked back home to ask for some cash to head to the Dollar General around the corner from the house.  

As I looked back, I realize that a lot of kids in the neighborhood were really cool but got into a lot of trouble at school with not listening to the teachers, challenging any substitutes in the classroom or being the class clown every day. I admit, I laughed at them or laughed with them as we sat in the classroom. At the time, it was funny but as I look back, I realized that I they were from broken homes rough around the edges which grew up a little rough around the edges as a one of my classmates.

As I’m always thinking about my childhood and decisions that I made, some of my childhood memories are eye openers and others pretty much give you that feeling like “wow I really did that when I was a kid”. For example, remember when you would be outside from at least after breakfast time to the time the street lights came on? Or even when you’re all the parents that lived on your street would visit and talk for hours leaving you and all the neighborhood kids to stay out for at least an extra hour? Coming up my childhood consisted of chasing that one ice cream truck, leaving the house clean with a high chance of coming home dirty, feeling like you had to be the neighborhood mechanic fixing your friends bicycle chain because the chain had popped off, or even playing basketball in the street with that one old tire, or those large bricks that always sat on the back of the goal where the water was supposed to be. I always think about the times that I had played tackle football in the grass with no equipment, or tried to see who the best thrower in my group was by throwing the football over cars when they had come down the street, or even who the fastest runner was too. It was crazy that we had to explain to our parents and talk about why the shoes that we had just gotten in not too long ago were already banged up and ready to be thrown away a week or two later. Also let’s not forget that one friend that we all had that naturally thought they were the best with the all the neighborhood girls of course. In this case, this was my good friend. This was one of those friends that just thought that all you needed was abs and then all the girls would come to you naturally. I never liked school at all because every time I looked up, I always remember sitting in the principal’s office getting an earful about the principal running low on patience or how I was running out of chances. I looked at school honestly as a way to socialize even if that meant that you might be getting that phone call home that you already knew was coming because the teacher told you. I never knew why I couldn’t get it together in class, but I could easily make the best jokes or say something that wasn’t meant to be funny but the whole class ended up laughing at. In middle school I eventually got to the point of me being so insubordinate that the only way that I could function naturally was in on campus suspension. The school that I went to was a really old building in a really bad neighborhood that always seemed to have a broken window or two over the weekend, literally just because the kids that lived in the surrounding neighborhood hated the school that bad. I remember making funny jokes in class, throwing crumbled up paper into the trashcan from a distance, and even making those folded up pieces of paper that used to make an unnecessarily loud pop noise and get the class off track to get a reaction. We all had that one accomplice in the classroom that would do pretty much everything that you would, but it always seemed to have more of a negative impact. One day I remember just having all the fun in the world cutting up in class until the next day, my parents had beat me to school because I was always on the school bus. I was military child and my father was in the army, and even though I knew the consequences I guess I thought that maybe this punishment wasn’t going to be as bad. Well I can in fact say that I was very wrong because all I could always remember was my mother and my father walking down the school hallways with the school issued visitors passes with those irritated looks on their faces because they had to get off of work to come see what the situation was. Seeing my father was always the scariest because he would always come to school with the standard army ACU’s and the thing is that I would never see him first, but I always had that friend that would be on a bathroom break or run an errand and come to class and say “bro your parents are here” making you get that gut feeling like you just caught the world’s worst stomach ache. I’m so glad that I grew out of that phase, and glad that I got to experience those lesson learning memories!

           As I look back, I realized that I had a much more difficult life lesson awaiting when I entered high school. I’m not quite sure how I didn’t get some of the psychological games or hundreds of verbal cues from my father. He seemed to be the happiest as he watched me on the football field, unless I made a mistake. I was so angry when I made a mistake because I knew I would never hear the end of it from my father. I wanted to make him proud, but I still didn’t know what the hell he wanted from me because nothing was good enough. How could I have expected him to know how to be a good father when he was abused by his own mother? He had a scar on his arm, a keloid, that was created when his mother slashed his arm with a shard from a broken vase. I was thankful that my mother was like the rock of our family, but she could only do so much to strengthen and lift our spirits. My mother was loving and prayerful, yet funny, strong and crazy all at the same time. When I say “crazy” I don’t mean that she was in the psych ward or anything. I mean that she was fearless with protecting our family or standing up for what she believed. My mother had to step into my father’s shoes as the disciplinarian when my father deployed. As I reflect, I realize that I pushed limits and boundaries with my mother far too many times. Before I jump too far ahead, I will start off by saying that things in our family took a turn for the worst, so my parents got divorced. My brother and I saw the arguments progressively getting worse and at times escalated from emotional to physical abuse. I’m not sure if it was the additional stress from deploying so much, anxiety of trying to measure up to his internal perception of himself, or continuance of the cycle of abuse from his upbringing. Regardless of why it occurred, it was still unacceptable. After the divorce we moved away from all of my friends and everyone that made the city home. I do not know why divorce and moving away seem to go together, but I was not sure how I felt about going to a new school and starting over. At 7:00 am, we pulled into the parking lot on my first day of school. Classes started at 7:30 but it there was already policemen standing in front of the school, a gang task force unit, and guys trying to prove they had the “juice” early in the morning. People were already talking about how the football season would go, ladies dancing in the hallways, and a few dudes throwing up “gang signs” from their set. As I waited to get my new schedule from the counselor, a police officer and a student came into the office. I was sleepy before I arrived at school, but I suddenly was awake with all the action happening so early in the morning. There were so many beautiful ladies walking by the office and some even waved to me as I waited. I was too busy watching all the ladies walk by the office so I didn’t hear the police officer introduce me to the student which I will call “Ray” to protect his identity. The police officer says, “Ray has been into a lot of trouble in the past but has turned his life around.” I wasn’t quite sure what to think about Ray. I wondered if he had been to jail, was in a gang, or what exactly happened in the past. Ray reached out his hand and said, “what’s up bro, I’ll show you what’s what today.” As soon as we stepped in the hallway, Ray was greeted by teachers, principals, the ladies and anybody that was anybody. Ray vouched for me that day and it turned out to be one of the best days of my young life. Most of the time I made good decisions during my first year at this school, but I had some bumps in the road with drinking, skipping school, and smoking that drove my mother crazy. Although my parents were no longer together their co-parenting skills were much better, so there wasn’t a way to divide and conquer. Ultimately, I started making better choices because I did not want to live with regret as I looked in the mirror. I started taking school seriously and my outlook on life started to change. I realized that I could still have a good time but focus on creating better goals to be successful in my life. I may not be able to change the past but I could definitely change the future.