Escaping childhood

Or can you?

If I do an honest assessment of who I am now I am convinced that I have only moved fractionally away from the person I was as a child.

As a child I –

· Loved science and science fiction (movies, TV shows, novels, short stories, it didn’t matter so long as there was a spaceship or an alien)
· Thought horror movies were the coolest thing ever
· Love to try to write stories to entertain myself
· Loved to spend time by myself in the woods or on the beach
· Avoided large crowds of people or enclosed spaces
· Felt that most people could be trusted – to a point
· Worried that I didn’t fit in with my family or friends
· Worried about the future and what kind of life I would have as a poor child from the projects
· Wondered if I would ever meet someone who loved me for who I really was
· Was terrified of the alcoholic dentist that we went to
· Loved the old radio serials from the 40’s and 50’s
· Truly believed that Humphrey Bogart was the best actor of all time
· Never noticed that there weren’t any black people in the old Saturday morning scifi movies that I loved so much (and didn’t really care)

And things haven’t really changed all that much since I’ve become an ‘adult’ –

· Love science and science fiction (movies, TV shows, novels, short stories, it doesn’t matter so long as there was a spaceship or an alien, but my tastes have changed a bit to be more sophisticated)
· Think horror movies have largely given way to loads of fake blood being thrown all over the set instead of inspiring true fear
· Still love to try to write stories to entertain myself (but all of a sudden it isn’t as much fun as it used to be)
· Love to spend time by myself in the woods or on the beach (just have to plan ahead now)
· Avoided large crowds of people or enclosed spaces (this hasn’t changed at all)
· Feel that most people can be trusted – to a point
· Still don’t fit in with my family or friends (especially since I stopped drinking)
· Worried about the future and what kind of life I would have as a man who is determined to find his own way
· Know that it’s possible to meet someone who loves me for me, but now I wonder how much of myself it’s safe to share
· Still isn’t all that fond of dentist or the dentistry profession
· Still loves the old radio serials from the 40’s and 50’s (just listen to them on my iPod now)
· Truly believed that Humphrey Bogart was the best actor of all time (Yep!)
· Never noticed that there weren’t any black people in the old Saturday morning scifi movies that I loved so much (and didn’t really care)(but now I am aware and pissed off for the fact that it has ruined the nostalgic feeling of watching the movies. I can’t just enjoy them for their own merits, everything is about whether there are black people in it…)

On the whole the only thing that really ‘changed’ was that I discovered sex. And I’ll be honest, I don’t know how much of a benefit that was. Sex is cool and all, but I apparently don’t know the difference between what’s supposed to be ‘normal’ and what is supposed to be ‘extreme’ or ‘too much’. But that topic is for another blog entry.

Right now I want to further examine the aspect of my seeming lack of change from then to now. I consider my childhood up to the point that we moved to California and I met the first girl I had sex with. I was 15. It totally stopped every other thought running through my head and as far as I’m concerned it started the path to adulthood that I am still on.

I choose this point because it was a major crossroads in creating ‘me’. Up to that point all I cared about was hanging out with my friends, playing D&D, riding my bike and otherwise being left alone. After that first time, lots of things that used to matter stopped being important.

I began planning for the future. I began to realize that life would change drastically, especially after I graduated. I can’t be sure, but I think that was the thought process that made me sign up for the military at 16 and then leave home before my 18th birthday. But through it all, I never really ‘changed’. My focus was different since I was no longer a child with child wants and needs. Who I was inside didn’t shift at all.

It wasn’t really until recently that I’ve begun to feel the pull of mortality. Having the first job that I’d ever had where injuries were common sort of woke me up to the vulnerability of my body. Having a job where mental abuse was common woke me up to the vulnerability of my mind and spirit. And then there was the damned foreclosure…

Despite all that, I still feel the same inside. I still like everything that’s on the list above. I still feel the same dislikes and have the same fears. That’s what got me to wondering if people ever really change.

Yes they get older and their tastes alter. Tastes in clothes, friends, foods, sexual habits, etc. But they don’t really ‘change’. There are people I’ve known my entire 43 years who are, at their core, the same person they were when we were kids together in Utica.

A lot of my current friends are the same people they were when I met them 5, 10 or 20 years ago. They still eat, drink, hang out, smoke weed, fuck, get screwed and communicate the same way they did when I met them. Sometimes they have to modify their diet due to some new ailment or fad diet, but that’s not a true change.

In my time I’ve never met anyone who has done a complete 180 paradigm shift from who they are. No one had gone from being an alcoholic to being a sober priest. No one has left the projects and become a multi millionaire business owner.

And the evidence is all over the news and media outlets. Even people who become huge music or movie stars aren’t able to leave who they are behind them. For reference think about people like Mike Vick, Kurt Cobain, hip-hop singer Chris Brown, Tupac, Notorious BIG, rapper T.I., Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and the list goes on and on.

These are people at the top of their game. They have money flowing out of every orifice and yet they still end up in trouble or in jail, or dead. They have thousands of adoring fans and the world at their fingertips. But they cannot let go of who they are inside. Makes me wonder just how far they are from who they were as kids.

Your childhood shapes you. I know a man who is a professional writer. He is good at what he does and he loves the life he’s built for himself. But he’s told me stories of being beat up by bullies at his school. Those events led him to martial arts. He still practices martial arts to this day. And that’s what I mean by events shape who you are. If he hadn’t been bullied would he have gone into martial arts? Would the same need that drove him have even existed? And was the need based on fear of being beat up again, maybe even as an adult? So from this arc of being a scared kid to adult, not much has changed. The feelings of back then forced an alteration, but didn’t change the base reality. He now knows how to take care of himself, but he’s admitted that the fear of being hit or injured is still there. He doesn’t care for sparring for that very reason.

Maybe I’m off on this one a bit, but I don’t think so.