ohbloodyhell8

It was a surreal day because Doc Brown had come to my work with his flux capacitor and took me back to 1983.  My history teacher  from ninth grade was at the career fair today.  Of course now he is an administrator and hasn’t been in the classroom for years.  I was thrown back to the early 80s and the misery that was my life in ninth grade.

What an awful year it was.  The history class was the high point of each day.  It was an ancient civilizations course and was fun and challenging.  We studied Egypt and we went on a field trip to a natural history museum, though I don’t recall if it was in NYC or Philly.  It was a great way of escaping the stress of my life that year.  Looking back, there have been harder years, but that year still makes the top ten of hard years.

My parents had just separated and with it my whole concept of normal changed.  I think that is one of the hardest parts of divorce for children.  The normal they relied on disappears instantly and it never comes back.  The daily schedule changes-it’s now just Mom there (in most cases and specifically in my own).  While it may sound sexist and stereotypical, without the “Dad”, the house feels less safe.  This can create a new sense of fear and paranoia and for me it did.

And then suddenly it’s a big deal to see your father.  You become aware of this phrase “visitation rights” and the term “custody”.  I had never really paid attention to these words before.  Sure, I had probably heard them in a movie or television show, but because it wasn’t a part of my life, I didn’t make a connection to it.  Those words had no meaning until they directly impacted me.  Things were tense between my folks and my father became less than cheerful to be around.

My history teacher became the positive male role model in my life.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say father-figure, but I do wonder if I would have become really bitter toward men if I hadn’t been in that class.  He was nice and supportive.  I didn’t have that at home from my dad anymore so it was nice to have it come from somewhere.

School always came easily to me.  I was bright and I loved learning.  I still love learning though at times I don’t feel as bright as I did in my youth.  A year later, in tenth grade, I had become officially bored with school and was planning to drop out and take the GED instead of two more years of not being challenged.  But, in ninth grade I had a history class that was interesting and awesome.  This history teacher made it that way.

I loved learning hieroglyphics and about the culture.  The religious structure within the society, the burial rituals, the architecture and the many developments the Egyptians had made in their civilization were fascinating.  I began to get a solid sense of how old the world was and how short my life on earth would be.  This was the year when I came to understand my mortality.  Thus began my desire to contribute something of value to the world through my existence.

Many ideas of what I would contribute have come and gone with the years.  As some of them have faded, it has been an exercise in letting go of a dream, but still keeping it alive.  Dreams don’t have to die even if you aren’t pursuing them.  I searched though for some time to figure out what would be of value to others.  I had my own ideas, but many were not filled with truth or with the right purpose.  And then, boom, I figured it out.

And now I have to go tuck them into bed.