A memory

When I was in grade school and we lived in a small town in the Black Hills, on specific Wednesday afternoons some of the kids went to church while the rest of us went to the Veterans Affairs (VA) campus in our town to hang out with some of the veterans there. The program paired one or two kids with a vet, and we did projects and tours and other fun stuff. This was the middle of the 1980s, so these vets were WW II guys, the Greatest Generation.

It's strange the memories that come to you when you're not even trying to think of anything. This is one of them. There seems to be a necessary recall going on in my head, the end of which I've yet to see.

The VA once tried to arrange for our parents to meet our vets. There was some sort of party that we were all invited to. It was a great idea. I didn't tell my parents about the party. My veteran got upset with me, asked why I didn't invite them, why we didn't go. I just figured he wouldn't understand, so I didn't tell him. That's been my life — just figuring people wouldn't understand. 

My parents were extremely busy people. They made plans and broke plans all the time. By the time I was in this program at the VA, they had broken plans hundreds of times. I was used to the brush off by this point, so I figured they'd be too busy this time as well. My life wasn't important. That's what I knew. From as far back as I can remember, I've believed that my life isn't important. This has a ton of ramifications. 

It's not up to me to understand why my life has been this way. And, it's still the attitude I get from my family. I don't know what I can do about the past, but I can seek to change the future. I'll never believe anything I say or do is important, though. It's hardwired in me now. 

The veteran my parents were supposed to meet ended up going to their office to meet them. I think he met my mom, but not my dad. He was upset with me, and rightly so. But he wouldn't have understood. My parents were important people in the community. 

It's just one memory, so it doesn't seem like much, but it wasn't an isolated incident. It provides a clue as to why my family became unimportant to me, why it was easy for me to not care if I saw them again. And it shows me the reasons why I have such low self-esteem go back to very real events in my life, things mostly forgotten. Had it not been for a vet who insisted on meeting my parents, I never would have remembered this incident. How many similar incidents have I forgotten?

I was always surprised if something special happened to me, as it was so rare that anyone made a big deal out of me or something I'd done. Birthdays were often no big deal. Concerts, meh. Doing well on school reports, whatever. I slunk away, invisible. 

There are so many people around us who have little foibles, character traits that bug us, mysterious little things they probably don't even realize. I wonder, if we really knew what their lives, their childhoods, were like, would we judge them so harshly? What if they've been through the same thing you've been through — got twisted up by it — or worse?  What if they don't have the capacity or the time to delve through their childhood memories with someone to uncover why they act the way they do? 

This memory illustrates why I jumped at the chance to move halfway across the country to be with a girl who just wanted to listen to me talk, who just wanted to give me the time of day. It was something I never had. I had no idea such a concept existed. She made me feel special just by LISTENING. It also explains why, when that same girl turned out to value me not nearly as much as I thought, I just took it like it was normal. For me, it was normal. 

Every time I think I'm coming to the end of this retrospective, I get another insight that must be explored. It's humbling and tiring, but necessary. It also emboldens me to move on from this place once again and seek another shore. It may not be a better shore, but there won't be these constant reminders of endless childhood wounds. 

I've often wondered why I didn't hue more closely to the traditional last-born child mold. In many ways I'm more like a first-born (with my responsible, OCD, perfectionistic tendencies that I'm trying to abandon) or second-born (feeling invisible, trying to keep others happy around me). I think the answer lies in my childhood somewhere. These memories are clues. I don't recall the love bombs that last-borns are supposed to have. There wasn't a whole lot of affection. My dad didn't hug, but my mom did. My brothers didn't want anything to do with me, didn't give me the time of day, and certainly didn't hug me. I was like a disease to them. Or a chore. Whatever I did to get attention only got me punished. That caused me to exhibit more outlandish behavior, which led to greater humiliation and punishment. Eventually I exhausted my desire to be noticed. It also explains why I forged myself into such a DIY, independent loner-type personality.

Psychologists say there's a progression of our behavior (or misbehavior). If one need isn't met, then we move on to the next need. There are four stages. The first one is attention. If we don't get that, we move on to power. If we don't get power, then we want revenge. The last stage is where I've spent most of my life. That stage is display of inadequacy. Psychologists also say if you're in the last two stages, then you need to see a therapist, preferably for the rest of your life, because there are deep issues that need to be tended to. I'm not in danger of hurting anyone or myself. I do have a need for therapy, but my independent streak continues.

When I was young, my mother constantly reinforced what she saw as necessary by saying one day I'd be bigger and stronger than my brothers and would beat up on them. I never was, nor did I have the desire. I moved on to the next stage, display of inadequacy. This explains why I never amounted to anything in my life and why it is my desire to fail at so many things. It's an almost automatic failure mechanism. It's why I want to crash and burn so many things. Given the number of things I've tried in my life, this is a staggering amount of failure. 

As necessary as it is to uncover the sources of my behavioral problems, it's also starting to cut really close to the bone. There is a part of me that wants to scream, "No more!" This particular problem is at the center of so many others. Its importance has eluded me most of my life, but now that I see it, I can't unsee it. It's daunting but not impossible to see growth and change. 

On the upside, I've seen significant positive change in my life in recent years. The inertia I've gathered has allowed me to continue down this path of improvement. It's heartening to see so many difficult scenarios unravel like stubborn knots coming undone. The confidence I've gained lately is impressive and, I think, necessary for the coming tasks. I look forward to what the future holds for me, both challenges and conquests.