Raised in the Era of Heroes and Cons
Song of the Century
I never really expected this to happen.
I mean, getting married in the first place was such a split decision.
I honestly don't know what made me do it.
Getting married, I mean.
Kristin is a great girl --no, more than great. Amazing, stupendous, wonderful, beyond words even-- I've known that since the day we met. The day she was sprinting down the quad, hair all askew, breath puffing out in front of her in the cold, December air, book bag in danger of losing all its contents into the snow. She ran right into me, unaware of the seventeen-year-old walking in the snow in front of her who was furiously trying to memorize all of the definitions in his text book for the test that he had in an hour.
That was the day I was thinking of relapsing back into my old ways. I mean, it was way easier back then. And back when I was doped up on just about everything, no one ever looked at my tattoos or face or clothes with utter disdain for every fiber of my being, but with a sense of awe and jealousy. I didn't have to be smart back then. I could just be a human being lost in space.
But then she ran into me.
Her bag pretty much decided that that was the exact time to let all her papers and books fly out.
"Shit. Shit."
"You need any help?"
"Yeah, sure, thanks, I'm just so late."
She didn't look at me until I had handed her all of her text books in a neat pile then picked up at least half of her papers. Her blue-gray eyes sparkled with interest when they met mine. We stood up from the snow in general awkwardness before she finally asked me out for drinks. I don't exactly know why I accepted, seeing I had finally been sober for about two months, but we went out.
Two years later, I proposed in the middle of her interior design class. She couldn't speak she was so surprised, but we were married in the fall of '93. We graduated in May of '94, with Kristin seven months pregnant.
We were so excited.
Yet somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was just filling a void that had been left all those summers ago.
I tried to ignore that fact. I was married. I was having a baby. I was quickly turning into one of the nation's top teenage psychologists even though I was only a month out of school. I was happy with this new life I had. For the most part.
Addison was born on July 4th, 1994.
We moved to Detroit. I was hired as a therapist for teens at the local hospital. I got my own office with plenty of space for my patients to roam around in if they wanted or needed to. I started staying late at work, really learning about the kids, getting to know where they came from, what they were diagnosed with before they came to me, trying to figure out how I could help them.
I didn't notice Kristin slowly becoming more detached from me. Even now I don't know why she was becoming that way.
By the time I had noticed, it was too late for us to fix our problems. We were fighting practically every night, I was constantly sleeping on the couch until she moved into her own apartment. Addison was four, somewhat able to comprehend what was going on. I tried to keep our arguments away from her as well as I could. I didn't expect her to come up to me one night, all wrapped up in her footie pajamas and teddy bear in hand, and curl into my lap.
"You and Mommy aren't happy, are you?"
I couldn't comprehend what would make her say that, and it took me a moment to respond to her question.
"Addie, darling, what would make you say that?"
"You never use your inside voices anymore." She didn't look at me when she said this, but stared intently at one of the stars tattooed on my right arm, tracing it with her small finger. "It's scary."
She looked up into my face at that point, obviously looking for some kind of answer, even if she didn't exactly understand it. I took a moment to figure out how to phrase what was happening between Kristin and I to our four-year-old daughter. "Addie...Mommy and I aren't in love anymore, so we won't be married for very much longer."
She looked like she was trying to process this for a minute or two as she looked down and started tracing the other shapes on my arms. Then she looked back up at me and said "Will you read me a bed time story?" as if I had never said those fateful words.
So I took her to bed and read her a story and she accepted what was happening, more or less.
Kristin and I filed after our biggest fight yet ("What is even WITH that tattoo anyway? Who IS Sara and why would you get her name tattooed no your NECK!?") and got a divorce three months later. I gained full custody and Kristin got visitation rights on weekends.
In 2001 I moved Addie and I back to Shitsville, taking the house that used to be my mom's before I put her in a nursing home. I repainted the walls and had Addie in my old room, while I took the room down the hall, to the left of the mirror that used to torment me and across from where my mom's room used to be.
Now Addison is sixteen, turning seventeen in a few months, and she's more like me than anyone could imagine. She got her first tattoo last January, the only one she's gotten with my permission, and more just seemed to follow. Her ears have been pierced multiple times and she's out at all hours of the night. She doesn't realize that I know she smokes --thinks she can hide it from me with all the perfume she puts on after she goes out with her friends, but Sara practically invented that trick back when we used to give a shit.
I'm expecting her to try and leave home any day now, I know she hates being the daughter of the most famous teenage psychologist in the nation, and we don't have the best father-daughter relationship in the world (she's repeatedly said that she hates me without giving an exact reason).
I can just be glad she hasn't started seeing someone who's not there. I would hate to have my own child go through that.
2011 is a scary time for the world. The wars around the globe never seem to end and the economic crisis here in America hasn't exactly let up yet. I know Obama is doing his best, but I still feel he could do better.
I can only hope that my relationship with Addie will get better before she leaves home.
That's the hope I cling to in these troubled times.
Sing us a Song of the Century
That's louder than bombs
And Eternity
The era of static and contraband
That's leading us to the Promised Land
Tell us a story that's by candlelight
Waging a war and LOSING THE FIGHT
They're playing the Song of the Century
Of PANIC and PROMISE and PROSPERITY
Tell me a story into that goodnight
Sing us a song for me
I mean, getting married in the first place was such a split decision.
I honestly don't know what made me do it.
Getting married, I mean.
Kristin is a great girl --no, more than great. Amazing, stupendous, wonderful, beyond words even-- I've known that since the day we met. The day she was sprinting down the quad, hair all askew, breath puffing out in front of her in the cold, December air, book bag in danger of losing all its contents into the snow. She ran right into me, unaware of the seventeen-year-old walking in the snow in front of her who was furiously trying to memorize all of the definitions in his text book for the test that he had in an hour.
That was the day I was thinking of relapsing back into my old ways. I mean, it was way easier back then. And back when I was doped up on just about everything, no one ever looked at my tattoos or face or clothes with utter disdain for every fiber of my being, but with a sense of awe and jealousy. I didn't have to be smart back then. I could just be a human being lost in space.
But then she ran into me.
Her bag pretty much decided that that was the exact time to let all her papers and books fly out.
"Shit. Shit."
"You need any help?"
"Yeah, sure, thanks, I'm just so late."
She didn't look at me until I had handed her all of her text books in a neat pile then picked up at least half of her papers. Her blue-gray eyes sparkled with interest when they met mine. We stood up from the snow in general awkwardness before she finally asked me out for drinks. I don't exactly know why I accepted, seeing I had finally been sober for about two months, but we went out.
Two years later, I proposed in the middle of her interior design class. She couldn't speak she was so surprised, but we were married in the fall of '93. We graduated in May of '94, with Kristin seven months pregnant.
We were so excited.
Yet somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was just filling a void that had been left all those summers ago.
I tried to ignore that fact. I was married. I was having a baby. I was quickly turning into one of the nation's top teenage psychologists even though I was only a month out of school. I was happy with this new life I had. For the most part.
Addison was born on July 4th, 1994.
We moved to Detroit. I was hired as a therapist for teens at the local hospital. I got my own office with plenty of space for my patients to roam around in if they wanted or needed to. I started staying late at work, really learning about the kids, getting to know where they came from, what they were diagnosed with before they came to me, trying to figure out how I could help them.
I didn't notice Kristin slowly becoming more detached from me. Even now I don't know why she was becoming that way.
By the time I had noticed, it was too late for us to fix our problems. We were fighting practically every night, I was constantly sleeping on the couch until she moved into her own apartment. Addison was four, somewhat able to comprehend what was going on. I tried to keep our arguments away from her as well as I could. I didn't expect her to come up to me one night, all wrapped up in her footie pajamas and teddy bear in hand, and curl into my lap.
"You and Mommy aren't happy, are you?"
I couldn't comprehend what would make her say that, and it took me a moment to respond to her question.
"Addie, darling, what would make you say that?"
"You never use your inside voices anymore." She didn't look at me when she said this, but stared intently at one of the stars tattooed on my right arm, tracing it with her small finger. "It's scary."
She looked up into my face at that point, obviously looking for some kind of answer, even if she didn't exactly understand it. I took a moment to figure out how to phrase what was happening between Kristin and I to our four-year-old daughter. "Addie...Mommy and I aren't in love anymore, so we won't be married for very much longer."
She looked like she was trying to process this for a minute or two as she looked down and started tracing the other shapes on my arms. Then she looked back up at me and said "Will you read me a bed time story?" as if I had never said those fateful words.
So I took her to bed and read her a story and she accepted what was happening, more or less.
Kristin and I filed after our biggest fight yet ("What is even WITH that tattoo anyway? Who IS Sara and why would you get her name tattooed no your NECK!?") and got a divorce three months later. I gained full custody and Kristin got visitation rights on weekends.
In 2001 I moved Addie and I back to Shitsville, taking the house that used to be my mom's before I put her in a nursing home. I repainted the walls and had Addie in my old room, while I took the room down the hall, to the left of the mirror that used to torment me and across from where my mom's room used to be.
Now Addison is sixteen, turning seventeen in a few months, and she's more like me than anyone could imagine. She got her first tattoo last January, the only one she's gotten with my permission, and more just seemed to follow. Her ears have been pierced multiple times and she's out at all hours of the night. She doesn't realize that I know she smokes --thinks she can hide it from me with all the perfume she puts on after she goes out with her friends, but Sara practically invented that trick back when we used to give a shit.
I'm expecting her to try and leave home any day now, I know she hates being the daughter of the most famous teenage psychologist in the nation, and we don't have the best father-daughter relationship in the world (she's repeatedly said that she hates me without giving an exact reason).
I can just be glad she hasn't started seeing someone who's not there. I would hate to have my own child go through that.
2011 is a scary time for the world. The wars around the globe never seem to end and the economic crisis here in America hasn't exactly let up yet. I know Obama is doing his best, but I still feel he could do better.
I can only hope that my relationship with Addie will get better before she leaves home.
That's the hope I cling to in these troubled times.
Sing us a Song of the Century
That's louder than bombs
And Eternity
The era of static and contraband
That's leading us to the Promised Land
Tell us a story that's by candlelight
Waging a war and LOSING THE FIGHT
They're playing the Song of the Century
Of PANIC and PROMISE and PROSPERITY
Tell me a story into that goodnight
Sing us a song for me