Pizza, Salt and Family

I wrote this for class a few semesters ago, I enjoyed it and was just talking with my little brother about it and decided to share it with everyone. Enjoy.
             My father, two brothers, sister and I all sit at the dinner table, waiting quietly for our Mother to bring our dinner to us. My mother enters the dining room wearing a nice sun dress with an apron tied around her waist, a smile on her face, and her hair perfectly done up. She places our dishes in front of each of us, then sits down to join us. My father begins talking about his day and we all listen diligently, only speaking when we are spoken to. After we eat we all stand up give our mother a kiss, thanking her for a wonderful dinner, we head off to do our homework.

No, wait. That was an episode of Leave it to Beaver. This is more how dinner really went at my house while I was growing up.

 My siblings and I come home from a long day of school (unless I was already home because of disciplinary reasons), both my parents are still at work so we head to the pantry and start snacking on all the groceries my mom just bought. When we are finished nothing is left except for pasta, a can of beans, and some Spam. We then start our “homework”. Now this consisted of the boys playing Sega Genesis, and my sister closing herself in her room away from our obnoxiousness.

                This would continue until we spotted one of our parents coming into the driveway, at which point we quickly shut of the games. We weren’t allowed to play until our homework was done so we pulled out books and pretended to read.  My dad would usually ask if we did our homework; our reply would either be “I just had to read” or “I didn’t have any”, then my dad would go on some rant about how back in his day they actually gave homework. It was the same speech every day; if only he knew that we had a shitload of homework we just chose not to do it. The stacks of progress reports hidden under my mattress say the same thing.

                When both parents are finally in the house it was time for dinner —well almost. Dad and Mom would try to figure out what we were going to eat since they were both too tired to cook.  They would then take a look in the pantry and start yelling at us that those groceries were for the whole week and how they won’t be buying anymore, so we our shit out of luck (my mom’s favorite line). This wasn’t an empty threat; she stood by it, so come Tuesday there was nothing left to eat and we starved until dinner. I guess it was our fault but we never seemed to learn our lesson.

                Around 8 pm it was decided we would order a pizza. My dad called in the order and left to go pick it up. My mom was glued to her book in the corner of the couch, the TV on but no one is paying attention to it. Now at this time my two brothers and I were probably fighting and beating each other up mom would scream and threaten us with the wooden spoon. Now that threat would shut us up because the wooden spoon hurts, but we would always thank god she didn’t have a heavy rolling pin.

 My dad walked in with the pizza after what seemed to be hours to our stomachs. We all stormed the kitchen armed with our paper plates and red paper we attacked the pie. We take our slices to the table and sit in or designated spot; mom and dad headed to the living room with theirs.

                My little brother, who sat right next to me, would constantly peer over me to try and watch the TV in the living room. I would constantly hit him, because I didn’t like anyone looking over my shoulder. My sister would hit me for hitting my brother; my little brother would hit my older brother just for the hell of it, causing my dad to come into the room and smack me over the head for starting the whole thing.  We would finish dinner and head to our room to relax for the rest of the night until it was time for bed.

                Now this was a typical night at the family dinner table; the food would change but most everything else would stay the same. Some days my sister would pour a ton of salt onto my plate thinking it would be funny, and I would have to eat it, because god forbid I wasted the food. Other nights my brother would unscrew the cap on the pepper shaker and wait for my little brother to put it on his mashed potatoes. Dinner was everything but a perfect experience at my house, but it was time spent with my siblings that has helped us remain close even though no longer living under the same roof and for that I am thankful.

Ventilation

Before reading this just know its not funny, its not full of deepness, its just me rambling. I'm sorry, I just needed to get t down and out. I promise I will have bro code part two done soon and my high-school years. Also I'm being pressured into signing up for te indie ink challenge so when I do sign up for that, ill be writing more. Oh and sorry about he format I wrote it on my phone and really really really don't feel like going to the computer to fix it.

I have something my chest and I need to move t like a tumor. Most of you who know me know that almost a year ago me and my girlfriend of nearly four years broke up. For those that didn't know that, well now you do. It has not been easy on me. You don't go from sleeping next to someone you truly love every night to getting dumped and be alright with it. It's just not how shit works. I never did anything to warrant a break up, in fact I was a great boyfriend, I was always willing to put st needs above everything, she came first. I am not romantic, far from it but I would do small things to make her happy. I thought that's what we were: happy. We were, we both thought we found our soul mates. But something happened, I'm not see how or why but she started talking to one of her friends friends and thought she kinda liked him, she told me this hoping it would spark some huge change in me, but it didn't, it just hurt, and besides what did I have to change, I was, as I said, the best boyfriend and friend to her. A few days later we took a walk in the pouring rain and she dumped me. Fuck man, me, dumped, I have no clue how, I'm the fucking man.

So a few months went by, we tried to be friends and everything was ok, but she soon wanted to get in a relationship with me, try and fix things. And I couldn't do it. I loved her still at thus point, I really still did but I was hurt once and I would not let myself to be hurt again. It played in my head when ever I was near her, I was still hurting. So I said I couldn't now but maybe sometime down the line. I really thought it was possible to be with her again, I was still in love with her, I was just too hurt at the time to try again.

Well we kept trying to be friends, it was fine but we started to fight a lot, about everything. Mind you we never fought while together, and if we did they lasted like ten minutes and we were hunky dory again. This constant fighting and constant pressure I felt under by her caused me to drift away further and further. I no longer loved her as anything but a friend. That is wild to me, we can go from being deeply in love, hoping to get married in the future to not feeling  ounce. I was afraid to say that to her, so I dragged her feeling along, and that is worse than what she did to me. I hurt her, I hate myself for hurting her. Maybe if I told her the truth when I felt I could no longer see us together the hurt I caused her would be less. If she reads this, I just want to say I'm sorry for the pain I've caused, I hope we can both find what we need in this life.

I cannot take back what I did to her, she can not take back what she did to me. We were soul mates with a future in each others arms and now we are just two souls looking for the arms of a new mate. Life is funny like that, you think you have everything figured out then you get thrown a Tim Wakefield knuckleball and you have no idea what to do with it. In life your not going to always get the pitch you want, but you have to learn how to hit whatever is thrown at you.

Long story short, we have stopped talking, who knows if we will ever speak again, she removed me from Facebook friends so she must be serious about not talking to me Hahahaha. Even with all the pain, I would not take back my time with her it was the best years of my life. She helped me through one of the darkest times of my life, and she helped me become the person I am without her who knows where I would be. She is a good person and will find someone who cares about her they way I did, and she will find happiness again. I will do the same.

One last thing to say, I want to thank all of my friends and family who have helped me through this shit. Most importantly the following people- Lauren, you have been there for me when I needed someone the most and you listened to the same bullshit over and over, thank you, you do not know how much your friendship has ment to me. Christina, you also helped me a lot, you are a good friend and I'm glad your part of my life. Mike, well mike your my best friend. And last but not least my sister Nicole, thank you. You were the first family member I told and your reaction was "do I have to beat her up?", I love you sister and I couldn't ask for a better one.

My Educational Journey Part 1- Middle School

This following blog is more for me more than you; I want to explore how I became who I am as far as education and career path. To explore what created me as a man would be a long book, so I won’t put you through that, at the moment.

The other day I was in quick check and I bumped into a person whom I hadn't seen in a while. The conversation was that one would usually have in this situation, "what are you doing?" I told him that I am majoring in English at Montclair to which he responded with laughter and “I couldn't see that ten years ago". This made me think of my journey thus far. I must admit that I never thought this would be my path either, and I think anyone who knew me just 6; years ago when I was graduating high school, would find this humorous as well. I don't even know where to start telling the journey of my education and maturation, I guess ill begin in 6th grade. This will be most likely a three part segment—let's begin.

Sixth grade was a weird one for me; it was my first year in a public school. Prior to that I was in catholic school, where I had the same classmates each year so I never really had to meet new people, I didn't even know how. I was somebody at St. Teresa's school, I had friends, I liked a girl in class and I was comfortable there, now I'm thrown into a new situation with kids who have been in school with one another for years. What the Hell was I going to do?

My parents enrolled me in the Summer Recreation program in hopes I would me people, I really only made one friend that summer, my buddy Mike who still happens to be my best friend. The first day of school I was like a fat person at a bulimics anonymous meeting. I stood out, I was new, I was unknown, and I felt like everyone’s eyes were on me, though in reality no one was looking at me, I was being ignored. Everyone was chatting with their friends discussing their summers, and I stood there alone.

I wanted to make friends, but I didn't know what to say to these kids, I never had to make friends before; this I think led to my slacking in my classes. I was so concerned on trying to make friends other than Mike; it distracted me from my school work. Not to mention on top of struggling to fit in, I was being bullied. It wasn't even a cool popular kid doing the bullying, it was some nerdy kid, who probably wasn't very popular and was trying to bully me to make himself look cooler. Mike and I stopped that noise quickly; it’s amazing what a couple nicely landed fists could do to bully preventing. These kids these days should try it instead of whining about it, but that's a different blog all together (idea!! Coming soon). I wasn’t being bullied anymore but I still had very few acquaintances. (I think it was this struggle that made me realize later in life that it’s better to have a few great friends that are always there for you than it is to have a lot of friends)

My grades slipped faster than Michael Jackson's hand down Macauly Culkin's pants. I was failing English and math. It was only the second semester and I was failing. What would they do with me? Into resource classes I went. One day I was in normal classes the next I was in special education classes, now that's a huge help on my friend making process. They may as well have just put a giant L on my head and a kick me sign on my back and save me the embarrassment.

"Oh hey Dan where were you in class"

"I'm no longer in that class, I'm now in class with the kid who still eats glue and the other kid who puts his bugers in his hair."

Now it was even harder on me to be put in special-ed classes for English than for math, I always loved writing, it had always been my Passion. I remember when I was a young tot I would write my own sports newspaper, It wasn’t very good but I loved it. It was so much fun to take my words and create something others could enjoy. Being placed in this class was like they took my Passion and Abraham Lincolned* that shit. I never wrote for fun anymore, I thought I was actually retarded; I thought I could never be a writer because I couldn't even survive in normal level classes.

I wanted to return to normal level classes, I wanted to stop feeling inferior to everyone. My return to normal English classes was a long way from the 6th grade. I was stuck in these classes for the remainder of middle school, and my love for writing drifted further and further away each year it came to a point where I hated English class and I didn't want to write at all. I was the 2008 Detroit Lions: completely defeated.

Part 2 High School, coming soon.


Glossary

Abraham Lincolned- To be killed, or destroyed by someone without warning.